


His Highness Steven Universe

by EchoFour, Hadithi



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged up characters, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Sexual Tension, So Much Sexual Tension, Steven is still a good boy, follows the storyline of the series, more like "entitled prince" Steven
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-04 02:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21189866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoFour/pseuds/EchoFour, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hadithi/pseuds/Hadithi
Summary: When Steven was a baby, Pearl removed the gem on his belly and changed everything. Raised with the knowledge that he's a Diamond with the fate of the world on his shoulders, Steven struggles to keep himself apart from humanity and be the empire-ending leader everyone tells him to be.But all that changes when he meets Connie Maheswaran, a lonely local high-schooler who craves magic and adventure, who sees through his overconfident facade to the gentle boy buried beneath. As their lives wind tighter together, she gives him hope that he can be the person he longs to be, and that an alien empire can be toppled without a war.





	1. Rocky Start

There was a human on Steven’s section of the beach, and he didn’t like it. The eighteen-year-old gem prince was too busy mastering his powers and learning how to rule an empire to deal with organics throwing themselves into danger. So, with his guardians preoccupied trying to find the source of the earthquakes, Steven strolled down the steps and across the sand to the invading girl. She didn't look up as he approached, too wrapped up in her book.

“This is private property,” he told her. “Leave.”

Her dark eyes flicked up to his pink ones, but she didn’t move. “Beach City zoning laws do not allow for private ownership of beaches. The city owns the coastline. So, no, I don’t have to go anywhere.”

Steven bristled. “This beach belongs to the Crystal Gems. I don’t care what humans laws say. You need to go.”

“Then drag me off yourself.” She looked back to her book, shifting her red booklight as she turned a page. “I’m sure the police will love arresting a stuck-up non-human for assaulting an unarmed shy girl.”

He scoffed. “Shy?”

“Extremely.”

He glanced down again and noticed her fingers were trembling around the cover of the book, despite her even tone. Well, that seemed like an exploitable weakness. He was just about to pry at it when another earthquake hit and a crack thundered out from above. Steven glanced up, watching the boulder tumble down, and quickly summoned his bubble to shield them both. The girl gasped, cringing away as the boulder hit and shattered. Rubble came down around them into the sand in a rumbling rain.

Steven grinned, kneeling down to her in the even pinker light of the bubble obscured sunset. There wasn’t much space in the bubble, and he found himself getting close. Very close. He’d never examined a human his age this closely before. Were all their features so...? He pushed the odd feelings down and focused on intimidation. “It’s not safe for humans. That’s why you should leave.”

He expected tears, but the girl’s eyes turned wondering and excited as she looked around the bubble. “You’re magic! _Really_ magic. Not just an edgelord trying to look cool.”

Steven blinked and leaned back. “What?”

“You called me human. I thought you were just a weirdo!” She grinned, book cast aside as her fingers poked and prodded at the hard light. “This is amazing. How does it work? You look human. Is this like a vampire thing? Can you turn me?”

“It’s by birth. I’m half-magic on my mom’s side.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re _just_ a human.”

Her eyes cut back to him. “You’re really elitist, aren’t you?”

“I am a prince,” he returned with a proud smirk. “A diamond.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay. So you’re a cocky, superpowered child no one ever said no to. Got it.”

The bubble dropped in his shock, rose tint fading from their tiny world and rising in his cheeks. “I’m not-”

But a massive worm burst from the surf, so he couldn’t say anything else. Steven was supposed to protect all life on his earth. So, despite the fact that she was disrespectful and infuriating, he grabbed her hand and dragged her along beside him. She kept up, book and bright red light clenched in her hand. She took long stumbling strides to match his own without him having to drag her. If anything, he noted with surprise, she was faster than he was.

“Is that a monster?” she panted.

“I fight monsters to save humanity on a daily basis. You’re welcome.” He grinned and summoned a shield to fling behind him without even a glance. It slammed into the worm’s face, making it scream from the impact as its head rocked back.

“Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “I really don’t want to die friendless.”

“You’re not going to die.” He gave her a push as the worm charged. “Go!”

She ran, and Steven went for the docks. It turned towards her at first, but he pelted the worm with shields, forcing its attention back to him every time it tried to find her. It was _keen_ on her for some reason, but he didn't have the time to worry about that now. He led it on, goading it through the pillars until it found itself tangled up in the heavy wooden pier, too knotted to move. The pier groaned and struggled under the strain of keeping it caught.

Steven crossed his arms at the screaming beast. “If I had a real weapon and not just a shield, I could finish you without waiting for the gems.”

“Heeeeey!” The girl ran back up to him, flickering her red booklight in the monster’s face. It followed the light with its mouth and began to strain, the wood creaking and cracking.

“What are you _doing?_” Steven hissed, grabbing at the light. He stopped when the pier splintered, and the loops of the monster bound tight as it lunged. It fell short as the heavy timbers collapsed upon it, then burst into smoke.

Steven stared in awe. A glittering gem had dropped in the sand. His first victory, without the gems around to see it, and he couldn't tell if he was overjoyed or bitter as he dropped down to the sand to bubble it away.

The girl trembled with excitement and adrenaline. “You said you wanted it finished. You helped me, so I helped you back. We’re even.”

“I think I did a lot more,” he argued.

She rolled her eyes again. “Of _course_. All I did was make it explode. To whom do I owe my undying gratitude for saving the earth?”

“Steven Universe,” he said, getting back to his feet. “Who owes me a life debt?”

There went any of the thrill or amusement in her eyes. It was all back to anger now. “I'm Connie Maheswaran, you insufferable jerk. You know, I was the one who noticed it was following my booklight. It stopped when I turned it off.”

"I wasn’t paying attention to that. But you ran when I told you," he said, looking her over appraisingly. Steven circled her slowly, surprised to find some decent muscle definition. She must play sports. He ignored a couple insults she slung his way as he eyed her up and down. "Your plan was sound. Good stamina. Reflexes. You'd make a decent soldier. I'll keep you."

She growled, flashing the booklight in his face to make him wince. "You'll _keep_ me? Oh, I'm so honored, _your highness_."

He growled back, swatting the light out of her hand. "The correct form of address is 'My Diamond', pet."

“_Pet?_” she shouted. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I’m a diamond.” He held out his phone and jutted it under her face. “Put your number in. You can come back sometime.”

“Why?” she shouted. “You’re a jerk! You’re an asshole! You’re the most insufferable person I’ve ever met.”

“Mmm. And I’m magic. And you’re curious.” He laughed, watching a flush slowly crawl up her cheeks. Human emotions were always easy to read, even if this one had managed to trick him briefly at the start.

She snatched the phone from his hand. “There’s got to be a way to get me magic if you have it. I’ll put up with your useless attitude if I get to be a magical girl.”

He suddenly found himself yelling again, sparked by her calling him useless, and was stuck that way until the gems came home late in the evening. All in all, he’d spent four hours fighting with the human over everything from his attitude to her aptitude to whether or not he owned the planet they were standing on. When the gems came back for the night to interrupt, strolling past him and Connie, the only remark was Amethyst’s flippant, “Say goodnight to your girlfriend, Ste-man. Pearl’s giving you tactics lessons in the morning.”

Heat rose in his cheeks as he snapped, “She’s a pet.”

“She’s called Connie,” Connie said flatly, strolling away. “And I doubt you’ll see me ever again.”


	2. Lion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode: Lion 2
> 
> Steven bribes Connie to his house with his new pet.

“Dude, why are you taking so many pictures of Lion?” Amethyst asked. “He’s, like, five pictures cute. Not forty pictures cute.”

Steven grinned, thumbs flying across his phone as he looked back at her. “I’m luring Connie back over. She wanted to go on a magical adventure, and this’ll do it.”

“Oh, yeah. Your little friend who dropped off the face of the earth. Scared off another human, huh?” she teased, shapeshifting herself taller to muss up his hair.

He scowled, feeling something at the memory of old attempts to make friends and burying it deep. “This is different. She wants to be part of magic stuff. Like the humans that fought in the rebellion.”

Pearl looked at him flatly, arms crossed. “Don’t get attached.”

He glared. “I know!”

“You can’t take the throne if you’re worrying about-”

“I _know_!” he snapped, shoving his phone in his pocket. “If you let me keep Lion you can let me keep Connie. Just because Mom fell in love with Dad doesn’t mean I’m-”

There was a pounding at the door, and Connie’s voice shouting, “I’ll look at the stupid fake Lion! You’re killing my data plan!”

Steven sauntered to the door, preening as he opened it with a flourish. "Connie! We weren't expecting you."

"Shove it, Steven." She tried to push past him with a shoulder check, but only succeeded in knocking herself back against his immovable body. Connie made a face, about to yell at him for something that clearly wasn’t his fault, when her eyes caught sight of Lion. Surprisingly real, very much alive, and walking towards her when he was already way too close to be safe.

Steven stepped around, making sure she could see his smirk as he leaned on Lion. "He's pretty great. Followed us home from a mission to the desert. He's a real softie, loves ice cream." He nearly lost his footing when Lion stepped towards her again, but he managed to right himself without losing too much panache.

"That's a real lion," she breathed as he walked up to her. Lion sniffed her curiously, and she squealed in terror as he licked her face. But that was all he did. No bites, no tackles, just a giant house cat that somehow had no interest in eating her. Connie put both hands on his pink face. "You have a real pet lion."

"I know. My pet collection is getting pretty packed. I'd say he's edging you out as my favorite for the moment, though." Steven grinned.

"Steven, you can't have a pet human," Pearl said sternly.

"Thank you." Connie grimaced, glad that at least one of these magical beings was on her side.

"You've got too many pets already. You have to draw the line somewhere, and humans are incredibly high-maintenance."

She groaned. "Never mind. Unthanks."

"Connie takes care of herself pretty easily. And she's already trained! I got her over here pretty easily." Steven grinned at her.

"I just came to see the lion while I was around. I'm seeing a movie, and it’s way cool than- Of course it's not." The idea of a movie being better than magic was too ridiculous to say aloud. Instead, she ran her hands through his mane with a gasp. "So soft! It's like he's made of clouds and silk. This is the greatest day of my life."

“What movie are you seeing?” Steven asked.

“_The Forest is Crawling_,” she said, nuzzling her face against Lion’s. He pushed back, and Steven frowned at him being so affectionate. That was different. Lion would usually be bored and wandering off by now. “It’s a horror movie. But I could stay and just hang out with you, you big fluffy boy. Yes I could!”

“Lion can run you to the movie,” he said, doing his best to look nonchalant as he examined his nails.. “Want me to take you?”

“A date,” Garnet suggested.

All Lion cuddling stopped immediately, Connie and Steven glaring at the tall gem with a simultaneous, “No.”

Connie looked back at Steven, “I’ll take a ride. I mean, I’ve got half an hour before it starts, but I wanted to buy snacks from the grocery store first. My mom said I can’t buy snacks at the theater, but, you know, loophole.”

He grinned as he hopped up on Lion’s back, the massive cat barely twitching under her weight. “Very clever.”

Steven offered his hand to her, and Connie ignored it. She climbed up behind him and sat very carefully, with several inches of space between them. “Let’s go.”

“You should probably hold on to me.”

“I have strong legs,” she retorted. “Take me to the movies.”

Lion loped out the open door, and Connie carefully kept herself from holding onto Steven as they rode. He certainly wasn’t the easiest animal to ride, but her thighs and calves kept her balanced enough, even as he picked up the pace. "How does he know where the movies are?"

Steven scratched Lion's head. "He seems pretty smart!"

Lion ran directly towards the ocean.

"Okay, new plan!" Steven squeezed his legs around Lion. "Turn? Go the other way? The movies are that way!"

Both of them cried out as Lion reached the surf... and kept on running. His paws barely left a splash as he rose and fell with the waves, running far from the coastline over the endless blue.

"He can run on water. Oh my gosh!" Connie laughed. "What else can he do?"

"Mooooovies!" Steven yelled at Lion. "I know I said to show off, but I also said to take us to the movies! They are not on the ocean, Lion! Take us back!"

Lion’s eyes glowed white and he roared, sending a ray of light over the water. The light grew in front of them into a pink and white pane of floating energy, and before they could react, Lion dove right into it. Connie couldn't help it. She grabbed Steven and held on for dear life as wind whipped at her. They flew through a starry expanse that looked nothing like space at all. Part of her wanted to analyze it, but all the other parts voting "scream" won a landslide victory.

She noted with a small amount of satisfaction that Prince Steven was screaming right along with her. She also noticed that the boy was surprisingly soft and comforting to hold onto, and very, very warm even in the whipping wind.

Another portal opened up in front of them, and Lion dove through into a cool, humid space. Water splashed up under his feet, and the two of them were thrown from his back by the shock of landing. They splashed into the water, letting out twin cries of alarm. "Did you know he could teleport?" Connie asked angrily as she squeezed water out of her hair.

"No!" He shook his head, sending water flying. "I would've told him to teleport to the movies if I knew that." Steven glared at Lion, who was now standing on a huge platform in the center of the water. "Though apparently he doesn't know what the word movies means!"

Connie looked around. They were in a wet cavern, lit only by the platform in the center. "Have you ever been here, Steven?"

"Never." He tried to look dignified, brushing water from his hair as he scanned her expression. Her anger was ebbing off, it seemed. "But clearly this is some kind of gem place. Humans don't build anything this good."

Connie scowled, but she followed him onto the platform. There was a pedestal in the center. "I wonder what this place is?"

"It's not where we were going, and is therefore unacceptable," Steven muttered. "I'm gonna talk to Lion after this."

"Maybe he brought you here on purpose." She examined the pedestal. There was a pink marking lit up on it, and it had a familiar shape - four fingers and a thumb. She slammed her hand down on it, but nothing happened. She pouted, but it was as she expected. Connie looked back at him and ordered, “Put your hand on it.”

“Yeah, I was getting there,” he said, slamming both his hands down. The panel glowed pink, sending a slight electric buzz up from his palms, and he started tugging. A harder tug. Nope, very firmly attached. Steven cocked his head. “Huh. My hands are stuck. That’s a new one.”

Connie snorted and poked his side. “Powers on the fritz, huh?”

“Stop that. It tickles,” he said absently, glaring at the panel. “If I had a dollar every time Mom’s stuff messed up on me…”

Connie smirked. “So, are gems normally ticklish?”

He stiffened, glaring at her. “Why?”

Her hand darted out, digging into his side. “Because I’m real sick of you calling me a pet.”

This was no good at all. He tried to retain his dignity as he squealed and squirmed away, but his hands were too firmly glued to the panel to get far. Despite his best efforts, she had him giggling in seconds, which only made her smile wider. “Oh my god. You’re _adorable_. Is this your real laugh?”

“Cut it out!” he squeaked, and the area around them suddenly shifted, full of armor on every side.

Connie’s eyes shone, and she left his side to wander forward. “This is the greatest day of my life.”

“You already said that.”

“It keeps being true.”

He looked at her, thinking for a bit, then muttered, “If I wanted to stab Connie?”

And, as expected, the room pulled up a plethora of swords. Connie gasped in awe and rushed for them, but Steven put them away before he could reach it. He grinned to himself, thinking of axes, canons, and watched as Connie rushed to each stack of weapons only to have them whisked away before she could grab one in an especially magical game of keep away. She spun, glaring at him. “Come on! I want to be part of the magical destiny!”

“Humans don’t get magical destinies,” he taunted. “Humans die in background explosions.”

And that’s when things went wrong.

Connie's eyes went wide, and she snarled at him. "Humans do _what_?" But Steven didn't answer. His hand came free, and the platform whirred and moved. Walls began to appear, penning them into a small arena, and a mechanical structure rose from the ground. It cycled through different bright, ominous glows, and Steven raised a shield as it settled on yellow.

"What do we do?" Connie cried out. "We don't have a pier!"

"We need a weapon!" Steven growled. "But all I've got is this stupid shield!" A ball of yellow light flew towards them, and Steven caught it with a grunt. It detonated in a crackle of electricity that buzzed through them and made their hair stand on end for a moment. Dread crept into his chest as he realized a hit like that could have taken out his bubble.

Connie scowled at him. "Then touch the stupid pad again! Let me use one of the literally dozens of weapons freely available in your weird armory!"

"If we had a sword, I would be using it!" The robot glowed orange, and this time he tugged her out of the way of a ball that erupted in fire on the walls around them.

Connie was about to retort when Lion pushed in between them, his fur glowing with a bright pink hilt. Steven grasped it without questioning anything, pulling a long pink blade free. "That's more like it!" He smirked. “Thank you, Lion.”

The robot launched another crackling ball of fire, and Steven sliced the sword at it. To his surprise, rather than cleaving in two, he watched it bounce back and go shooting off into the darkness. Steven laughed, doing the same with the next blast, only to have his mood brought down when Connie snapped, “Steven, you have to _aim._”

“I’ve hit every one!” he snapped, and sliced at yet another orb.

“Haven’t you ever played Ocarina of Time?”

“Of course I’ve-oh.” He readied himself for the next one and smack it hard, only to have that one shoot off into darkness to.

Connie screeched with frustration. “Okay! Give me the sword! I play tennis.”

“It’s not tennis.”

“It’s _basically_ tennis!”

Steven kept trying and failing, and finally his aim was so bad that one of the balls detonated against the flat of the sword, sending it careening to stab into the ground at her feet. She squeaked at the near miss, dodging with nimble skill, but she quickly regained herself and pulled the blade free from the ground.

"That's clearly mine," Steven growled.

Connie didn't answer. As the next ball came, she struck at it with a careful backhand, sending it flying directly back into the robot, which promptly exploded in a shower of sparks. Steven stared at the smoking wreckage as the walls collapsed around them, freeing them once again. Connie swung the sword a few more times, testing the weight, and smirked at him. "No, I really think it's mine."

“Give it, pet!” he demanding, lunging at her.

“You can pry it from my background exploded corpse!” she laughed, easily dodging his assault. “You’re so _slow!_”

He feinted to the left and grabbed with his right, catching her wrist. She yelped with surprise as he effortlessly tugged the sword from her hand before releasing her. “I make up for it with power. So.” He eyed Lion, and carefully pushed the sword back into his mane. The pale pink glow faded, and several minutes of Connie’s frantic efforts couldn’t get it back. “Wasn’t there a movie you wanted to see?”

She glanced at the time on her phone. “I guess I’ve still got time. If I stay, will you give me a sword?”

“They’re not your swords.”

Connie scowled. “Fine. I’ll just go see _Dogcopter 7_ then.”

Everything froze for a moment, and a slow smirk grew over Steven’s face. “I’m sorry. You’re seeing _what_?”

“I’m seeing _The Forest is Crawling_,” she lied quickly.

“You’re seeing _Dogcopter 7_?”

“No!” she yelped, face flaming. “I’m seeing a horror movie!”

He laughed. “Okay, now _we’re_ seeing _Dogcopter 7_.”

“You can’t! You have to watch Lion. They don’t allow lions in movie theaters.”

“He’s a Lion.” He scoffed, hopping up on his steed’s back. He held out his hand to Connie, and she took it without a word, letting him hoist her up. “How do you think they’re going to stop me from bringing him in?”

Steven was right. There was nothing they could do to stop Lion from coming to see the movie with them, and the usher wasn’t about to try to. Connie watched the movie with her knees pressed to her chest, unable to enjoy it due to every snicker and snide comment Steven made. But he did note something else on her face, every time she glanced at Lion.

There was longing in her eyes. Greed. Connie Maheswaran wanted the sword buried in Lion’s fur, and she had no way to get it. Something purred in his chest. Something eased the pain he hadn’t even noticed was there. There was something inexplicably wonderful about the idea that Connie was going to stick around.

That was worth sitting through any awful movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops. We're accidentally making this a story with character arcs and feelings. My b, y'all.


	3. A Direct Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during An Indirect Kiss.

"Sword?" Connie said, long hair blowing in the sunny breeze. Her hand was already extended, palm up, as if he was just going to hand it over without any fuss.

"That's not a nice way to ask," he said, lounging against Lion’s belly. "You didn't even use my title."

"It's a dumb title. I could give you a m'lord?" she suggested. "Wouldst thou surrender thine sword to me, m'lord?"

He grinned. "Shouldn't it be surrender-eth?"

"No." She rolled her eyes. "Come on. I already climbed this big stupid hill to get to you. Give me the sword and I can recite Hamlet's monologue while I swing it. You can learn all about Elizabethan English."

"Isn't it Old English?"

"No. That's Beowulf. Just give me the sword, Steven. You can't lure a girl over to your house with the promise of a sword and then not give her a sword. It's rude. I took the bus, you know. Paid a dollar fifty. It's another dollar fifty to get home."

He laughed. "So, if I don't give you the sword, I owe you three dollars?"

"Well, it's forty minutes round trip. Minimum wage is eight dollars an hour, plus the three, and you'll owe me." Her fingers wiggled at her side as she did some mental math. "Eight thirty three."

"Oh, well, that's too expensive." He leaned over with a chuckle and tugged the sword from Lion's mane. "Here. Have fun."

She rushed up to him, and when her hands brushed against his to take it, his heart stuttered in his chest. She was too focused to notice his blush, to notice his brain had stopped to memorize the feel of her warm, calloused hands against his. He just stared on as she squealed with delight, swinging and slashing and twirling with the blade. 

He had seen Pearl use a sword a few times. Connie was no Pearl. Everything seemed off in ways he couldn't understand - her stance, her grip, her motions. Pearl had always offered to teach him to wield a blade, but it had never seemed worthwhile. He wanted his own weapon, something that came from his gem, rather than the remnant of a gem war that he couldn't remember, no matter how hard he tried. No matter how hard the gems wanted him to.

"Wasn't there supposed to be a monologue?" he asked.

"Mmm, no. Don't remember that." She stabbed at imaginary enemies.

"You're the worst pet," he mumbled.

"You're the worst diamond," she quipped back.

Anger and hurt flared in equal measure and Steven rushed in front of her, holding out his shield. Connie was eager to take on a more substantial target. The sword clashed against it, over and over again with reckless joy. Her eyes locked onto his as he glared, and if she saw his anger she didn’t care in the slightest. The sword bashed and slammed against his unstoppable shield, only to suddenly be cut short by a hiss and a cringe. She dropped the sword, clinging to her shoulder.

"You're hurt?"

"I pulled a muscle," she mumbled. "I had tennis practice today. I overdid it."

"You were hitting my shield pretty hard." He looked down at it, feeling the drain it had took out of him to take so many blows. Humans were stronger than he thought.

"I got excited to have a real opponent." She rubbed the muscle slowly, but he couldn't see the excitement in her face anymore, all drained away into a slightly dour mask.

So it wasn't just a one time thing. She was good at keeping her emotions under wraps. That was... unsettling. He grit his teeth and shoved it aside. He went for charming, smiling brightly as his shield burned out. "I have good news for you about that sore shoulder. Did you notice the fence?"

"Yeah. It's nice." She looked at it for a moment, then turned to him with a grin. "You fell off, didn't you?"

"No!" he said. "Amethyst did. Her gem was cracked and I healed her."

He waited for her awe, as the gems had been when he first mastered his healing powers years ago. But it never came. Connie just scoffed. "Oh yeah? How?"

"I have magic spit."

She giggled and wrinkled her nose. "You licked her better?" 

He flushed. "Kissed. I could do the same for you."

“It’s a sore muscle and a headache,” she said dryly. “I think I’ll survive. Don’t lick me.”

“But what if I could fix it?” he asked, stepping closer. How was he supposed to do this? He tried to carry himself taller, summon up his confidence and let it leak into every movement. His voice slowed, more of a drawl. “What if my healing powers can do amazing things to organic life? Do you really want to miss out on your opportunity to be a real magical girl?”

She narrowed her eyes and took a step back. “What are you getting at?”

“If I can lick my dad’s leg and fix it,” he said, taking another step forward. She matched his step back, and her back hit the wall of the lighthouse. Perfect. Steven grinned as everything fell into place. “What do you think a full powered kiss might do?” 

He did it like the movies. Like books. Like how Garnet and Pearl danced. His arms came to rest on either side of her head, caging her in against the side of the lighthouse. Their faces were inches apart as he fell forward, everything burning from their almost touching torsos and limbs and lips. Her dark eyes glanced down across his face, then back up as a flush rose to her cheeks. It was fast, but he saw it.

His heart was pounding in his chest, breaths coming harder than he was used to. Why? _He_ was seducing_ her_. _He_ was the one in charge. She was supposed to be breathless and panting and have her lips parted, instead of the straight faced look with only a blush, albeit one so hot he could swear he could feel it on his own cheeks. He stared hard into her eyes, willing it, pushing it. _Crumble. Break. Show me what you’re feeling. _

Connie stared back, as impenetrable as ever. “Are you… asking permission?”

“Yes,” he said, trying to keep his voice at a low purr. It wouldn’t cooperate. It was too raspy, scratchy as his throat closed up. He swallowed and murmured, “I want to improve my pet.”

A flicker of annoyance, but curiosity was spreading more and more. “You’re not just shoving me against the wall for a dramatic kiss. You’re really asking. You won’t if I say no.”

“You don’t want to say no,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

“You have ethics,” she whispered, finally showing some of the awe and wonder he had expected when he revealed his healing powers.. “You actually _ care _about my consent.”

“Do you want to see if I can kiss you magic or not?” Steven snapped. 

He took her chin in his hand, tugging it forward slightly. That earned a heated gasp, finally, but his delight at finally effecting her vanished as her tongue darted out to lick parted lips. His stomach twisted into knots, his heart beating painfully against his ribs. What was happening? Why did he need her to kiss him so badly? She was just a pet. She was just a worthless organic.

“Do it,” she said, her voice as choked as his. “Anything for mag-.”

His mouth was on hers before Connie could finish, and he wished he could believe it was just for the pleasure of cutting her off. But everything was aching and needing, for some reason desperate to have her touching him. His head spun as he felt her soft, hot lips pushing against his, and somewhere in the back of his head he thought,_ I must be cracked_. But the rest of his mind, much more focused and stupid than the rest of him, instead urged him to push harder, to get higher than her to tilt back her head and see if she’d let him try that thing where his tongue went into her mouth.

And then she nipped him, not too rough, but accompanied with a firm shove. He glared at her, hand over his completely uninjured lips. She was breathing hard, but smirking as she leaned against the wall. “Did you seriously get on your tiptoes to fake being taller than me?”

No, of course not. That would be silly. He glanced down and felt a blush go to his face. He was-

“You can _fly_?”

“Float,” he corrected.

“You can- _ow_.” She winced, closing her eyes and tugging off her glasses. “My headache just got worse. Nice job, your highness.”

His feet touched back on the ground, despair closing in. Was he broken again? He had the confidence now. He always had the confidence, or he always faked it enough that everything worked. But now his powers were doing the opposite, backfiring. He couldn’t even manage to kiss Connie without losing control and obviously his emotions were out of whack. Pearl was going to be furious, and she should be. He wasn’t being a good Diamond. He wasn’t living up to her legacy.

But Connie was staring at him. “I can see.”

“What?” he whispered.

“I can see without my glasses. You fixed my eyesight.” She gawked. “What the fuck? That was genetic!”

He almost felt dizzy from the way she yanked his emotions back and forth. A giddy laugh escaped him as he said, “You’re welcome, loyal subject.”

“This isn’t possible. How did this…this doesn’t make sense.” She was staring at the glasses in her hands, fear spreading across her features like a wildfire. “This is real. This is all real.”

There went his mood again. Could she not just _ pick a feeling _? He shook his head. “Of course it’s real. What did you think?”

“That I was making you up!” she snapped, hands trembling as the frames dangled from her fingertips. “That I spent nearly seventeen years alone and that I finally snapped! That I made an imaginary friend to bully me because I don’t even know what it would look like to have someone _ like _me! Magic isn’t real! I’m not special! I’m not interesting! I’m not actually supposed to be here!”

“I told you that and you didn’t listen.” He narrowed his eyes and stepped back to her. Steven was careful, very careful not to touch without her permission, no matter how badly he wished he could shut her up again. She couldn’t leave. “It’s too late now. You’re here.”

“I can leave whenever I want!” she snapped.

“Your eyes are fixed. That’s my magic. My world.” His flicked the glasses as his voice rose, “_You_ finished off the corrupted gem at the pier. _You_ destroyed the robot. _You_ agreed to the kiss. You don’t get to start this and push at me and yell at me and say you’re allowed to do whatever you want and then run away from everything!” 

Pink flashed in the back of his mind. Secrets. Lies. Rebellion. Rebirth. He shook his head furiously. There wasn’t time for that now. “This isn’t a game! You asked to be a part of it and you got what you wished for! Say ‘_thank you, my Diamond_!’”

“We need to stop yelling before the gems come,” she said coolly, shoulders stiff. There went her emotions again. Connie looked down at her glasses, thumbs pressed against the lenses, then slowly pushed. Two quiet pops, and the soft sound of polymer falling into the tall grass. She put them back up to her eyes and met his gaze. “I’ll have to get some plastic for these soon.”

“What? Why?” He frowned.

“My parents will notice empty frames. I can’t explain magic.” She pushed them up her nose, steadying herself for a few moments. “You really own this planet?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” he said, struggling to keep from shouting again.

“Well. That settles it.” She took a deep breath and pushed off the wall, shoving right past him. “Someone’s got to teach you how to be human. Guess that’s me.”

“And what does that entail?” he growled, but everything was easing. She was here. She was staying. She was back to that easy acceptance, that fierce look, that little touch of greed that he stoked and pushed because it meant she would never, ever go. It was going to be okay now, because she wanted something from him, just like everyone else.

She smiled, and the rest of the world faded away. “You’ve got some kind of ethics code, my Diamond. Let’s flesh it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Time:
> 
> “That’s a cracked gem on the back, isn’t it?” Connie said, examining the mirror closely.  
“Pearl says that it’s broken. Garnet says it can’t want anything. I guess this kind of gem must be special, made for mirrors or something.”  
“You should lick it.”  
“Why?”  
“Best case scenario," she began, "you fix the mirror and it works exactly the way it should.”  
“Okay,” he said, "And what's the thing you're afraid of?"  
She stared at the mirror, just a touch of horror in her eyes. “What if it’s a person?”


	4. The Gem in the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Pearl gives Steven a mirror to show him scenes from the gem war, Connie presents him with an ethical dilemma.
> 
> Covers Mirror Gem and Ocean Gem

Steven had a talking mirror, and he was going to make good use of it. He sat with a dictionary open in his lap, picking common words and saying them into the smooth surface, and smiled every time the mirror said one back. It didn't seem to love every word, but repeated a lot of them. He figured once he gave it a decent vocabulary, they could actually talk. He was good at talking. Or, at least, he could be good at talking when it mattered.

He looked up at the quiet knock at the door, but Pearl was already there. 

"Do your parents know where you are?" Pearl said, blocking Connie from entering the beach house. Steven scowled. She had been over here enough by now Pearl should really just let her in. 

"Yes, ma'am," Connie said patiently, holding up her phone. "I text my mother every four hours to let her know I'm alright. As long as I get my responsibilities done, the rest is up to me. They're busy and I'm independent." 

"And have you gotten your responsibilities done?"

"Yes, ma'am." She nodded.

"I suppose I can't complain, then." Pearl sighed and stepped aside. "The mirror he's playing with is a very ancient artifact from a human point of view. Please be careful with it."

Another cheerful, "Yes, ma'am!" and Connie had raced on up to Steven's bed, bouncing on the mattress as she leapt up beside him. She squealed and stretched across him as he held the mirror away. "I came all this way! Lemme see it. You're such a jerk!"

"I'm teaching it words," he retorted. "You don't have to get your hands on everything I own."

"You're such a jerk!" the mirror said, and Connie giggled.

"Aw, it hates you too!"

"It does  _ not. _ It's broken because it's old. It should have taught me everything about gem history, but it's memory failed. I noticed it was playing back things, so I'm seeing if I can teach it language."

"It's not sapient, Steven. You should spend your time on something better," Pearl said patiently. "Please keep a respectful distance from your little friend while we head out on a mission."

Steven grinned, glancing down at where Connie sprawled across his chest in a mad grab for the mirror. His heart fluttered a bit at all the contact, even if it was all rough grabbing and slightly painful knees and elbows. "Does this count?"

She just sighed again, leaving for the warp pad. Amethyst giggled goodbye, and Garnet gave him a hand heart before they vanished. Connie gasped in his lap, and quickly rolled off to look up at him. "That was  _ cute _ ! Are you cute with them? Why aren’t you cute with me?"

He felt his face redden and glared. "If you're going to act like this the whole time, you should just go home. You made me lose my reading spot. “

"Ooh, pouty." She looked down at where the dictionary had flipped closed on the bed. "Hey, Steven, you looked up the most common words in the English language first, right?"

Steven stiffened beside her, and she prodded, "You looked up beginner English and read off a vocabulary sheet? Thought of words most relevant to the things you want to know and worked from there? Something that proves you put the slightest amount of practicality and forethought into the situation?"

He glared. "You're using eloquent vocabulary on purpose."

She shoved the dictionary off her bed and pulled out her smartphone. "There are 44 phonemes in the English language, from which all words can be pronounced. How about we start from there and then work our way through plodding through a dictionary in alphabetical order?"

* * *

The mirror's voice was flat and emotionless, using the phonemes Steven had read off to construct sentences, but that didn't make it any less riveting. The two of them stared at the mirror, watching Steven’s reflected face quickly and emotionlessly explain the plight of the mirror gem.

"I don't know how much time I've lost. However long it's been since the gem war. I'm Lapis Lazuli and I was trapped in this mirror by Homeworld. I was caught in a battle and my form was dissipated. Before I could reform, they trapped me in this mirror. They thought I was a Crystal Gem and tried to force information from me. When they left this planet, I was cracked in the struggle and left behind. And then that Pearl found me and locked me away in her gem. They’ve kept me trapped for thousands of years."

Steven shook his head as Connie looked at him. "The Crystal Gems would never do that. Not on purpose. This has to be made up. Maybe that's part of why it's broken? It's trying to make up things instead of just replay them."

Connie frowned. "Are you sure? How well do you know them?"

"They've been raising me since I was seven, so I know them pretty well,” he snapped. “They’re my family. When I first started showing signs of inheriting mom's powers my dad gave me up to them so they could keep me safe and teach me."

She nodded along. "You mean Pink-"

Steven’s hand clapped over her mouth, the mirror falling to the bed. He felt her gasp in shock under his hand, and he felt a moment of guilt right after it for being so rough. "I mean Rose Quartz. I don't like the name you were going to call her. It's a bad name."

Connie's eyes widened, and she nodded slightly. He hesitated to take his hand away, worried it was a trick and she would say the name just to get under his skin, but she finished, "Rose Quartz's powers. You got them from her."

"Rose Quartz?" said the mirror. "But I thought you were Steven."

"I am. Rose Quartz is my mom. Oh, uh, sorry. Gem." He ran a hand through his hair and searched his brain for an explanation. Oh boy. What was the closest things gems had to dying? "Rose Quartz, uh... She shattered? Without shattering? And now I have her gem. But I'm not her."

"She shattered? Without shattering?" the mirror repeated back.

Connie looked just as confused. "Shattered without shattering? What does that mean?"

"She's dead. Gone.” He tapped the mirror. “I don't know how to explain it to a gem. It's not something that happens to them. They die when their gem is too broken to repair. They're ageless."

"Okay, so that's why Pearl seems so nuts. She's some kind of angry, ancient warrior."

"No. I mean, yeah, but that's not why she's..." He groaned. "She's different when you're not around! She's nice! She’s the closest thing I have to a mom."

"Sure. I'll pretend that makes sense. So why is Pearl so crazy?" Connie insisted. "Why is everything so tense here all the time? Half the time I'm here it feels like everyone is on the edge of having a breakdown."

"My Dad said when I was a kid, Pearl pulled out my gem for a second," Steven said, the thought of it making his skin crawl, like ripping off a limb. She was staring, so he finished, "And it's been weird ever since."

"It comes out?" Connie wrinkled her nose. "Gross. Is there a hole or something?"

"I don't remember, and the gems don't like to talk about it. And, before you ask, you can't just steal it and shove it in. That's not how it works."

"I wasn't going to ask," she said, grinning. "I was going to think it, but I wasn't going to ask. What would have happened if she kept it? Could she have two gems? Would you be a normal human?"

He winced. "They're pretty sure I was dying, both parts of me. There was a lot of screaming, and it kept getting weaker and… it wasn’t good."

Connie winced back. "Now I look like a jerk."

"You're such a jerk!" the mirror chimed.

"Thank you, Lapis," Connie muttered.

"Don't call it that!" he said. "It can't be Lapis. I know Pearl seems mean, but you've met Amethyst and Garnet. Could you imagine them doing something like that? Pearl's just as good as them."

"Maybe they don't know. They thought this thing was completely busted."

Connie took the mirror and slowly turned it over, ignoring it's monotone cry of, "I can't see like this" and it's enthusiastic cry of, "You're such a jerk!"

“That’s a cracked gem on the back, isn’t it?” Connie said, her finger pointing to the blue teardrop.

He hugged his knees to his chest, already feeling where she was going with it. He tried to talk her down. “Pearl says that it’s broken. Garnet says it can’t want anything. I guess this kind of gem must be special, made for mirrors or something."

“You should lick it.”

“Why?” Steven groaned.

“Best case scenario," she began, "you fix the mirror and it works exactly the way it should.”

“Okay,” he said, "And what's the thing you're afraid of?"

She stared at the mirror, just a touch of horror in her eyes. “What if it  _ is _ a person?”

"It's not a person!" Steven snapped. “Stop saying that! I know the Crystal Gems better than you do. Pearl wouldn’t keep someone trapped. It’s making up stories. It probably heard Pearl talking about the gem war. I’m sure that Lapis is a real kind of gem, but that doesn’t mean we have to believe a talking mirror!”

“Is keeping a talking mirror around worth the risk of leaving someone trapped in it?” Connie stood up, pacing and biting her thumb. “Even if gems operate differently than humans, it seems cruel to keep something capable of learning locked away with no stimulation. I can’t even imagine how horrible that must be.”

“You don’t have to. Because it isn’t happening!” Steven looked at his own frowning face in the mirror. “Here. I’ll lick it. It’ll be fixed and then we’ll see that it’s just making things up because it’s broken.”

Connie’s shoulders dropped, some of the tension fading. “Do it, then.”

“Don’t order me.” He stuck two fingers in his mouth and turned the mirror over in his hand. His stomach turned. It looked so much like a gem. But that couldn’t mean anything. He trusted Pearl - the gem who had fed him and bathed him and put him to bed. The gem who had promised she would keep him safe and get him back to the throne if it took her life. She would never be a part of something so awful.

He traced his fingers over the crack in the gem, and the magic sparkled and shone as the crack sealed over like it had never existed. He turned it back over. “Alright, mirror. Tell me about--”

The mirror interrupted him, but it wasn’t using Steven’s clipped, artificial phonemes anymore. It was a female voice, and it wasn’t one he recognized. “Thank you! I can finally speak again! Please, you have to listen. I wasn’t a soldier. I didn’t fight either side. I was just caught in the middle! Whoever you are, please, you have to help me!”

Steven’s blood turned to ice. “This can’t be real. Mirror. Show me the gem war.”

The voice in the mirror turned harsh. “You want to see it so bad? Fine!” Connie crowded in close to him as the image on the mirror swirled and shifted. He could see a battlefield, the skies red with fire and black with smoke as ships poured laser cannon fire onto the Earth. 

“I was here for a routine mission. Sculpting some structures away to prepare for building. When the battle broke out, I was caught.” The point of view moved wildly and bounced around before soaring into the air. They kept seeing flashes of blue hands and shoulders as whoever’s point of view it was kept running or flying. “I tried to find someone. But I wasn’t a soldier. I didn’t know who to report to or where to go. I just kept running. And eventually, I was caught.” The view landed, and half turned. There was a splash of color for an instant, a gem Steven didn’t recognize, and the mirror’s view jolted and went black.

“Is any of that familiar?” Connie asked.

His fingers clenched tightly around the handle. “It’s… it’s consistent. It’s a believable story. That doesn’t make it true.”

“What else could it be?” she said. “Maybe the gems didn’t know. Lapis, you said it was Homeworld who caught you, right? The gems found you? Was that before or after you were cracked?”

“After.” Lapis said, a little weaker, “Maybe they didn’t know. But they should have! I’m a Lapis Lazuli! You don’t just shove a Lapis into a mirror like it’s some kind of old Pearl!”

Steven growled. “Don’t say that.”

“Don’t get mad,” Connie retorted. “She’s a prisoner. She’s been a prisoner for five thousand years. You can’t let your decision to free her be affected by her being kind of racist.”

He took a deep breath to steady himself and grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s get down to the beach. I don’t want the gems to see this, whatever we end up doing.”

She let him drag her along, and Lapis (the mirror, he tried to remind himself) babbled about being let go, about how long she’d been in the mirror, about how much time had fuzzed and blurred and she wouldn’t hurt anyone, she just wanted to go home. He held her (it) up in the light and glared. “Lapis Lazuli, for what crime were you imprisoned in this mirror?”

“For being a Crystal Gem,” she said quickly, flashing the star and battle scenes on the pale surface. “But I never was. And if you’re friends with the Crystal Gems, I don’t care about them either. I just want to go home.”

“If I set you free,” he said firmly, “You promise to go back to Homeworld without hurting anyone? Without telling anyone about Earth and that the Crystal Gems are still here?”

“Of course!” she cried. “I swear, Steven - I mean, Rose Quartz. Whoever you are. I don’t want to hurt anyone. You’ve healed me. I can fly to the nearest warp and get home without having to hurt anyone. I’ll tell them I was...I was stranded somewhere. That it took thousands of years to gather enough water to fly. No one has to know.”

He closed his eyes, heart aching in his chest. It would be so much easier to leave her there. Pearl would want that. Garnet and Amethyst probably would too. Homeworld gems were cruel and evil. Liars and cowards. They wanted to destroy the Earth and leave nothing but a horrible husk behind. He shouldn’t trust Lapis Lazuli. He should listen to his brain and his elders and crack the mirror again under his heel.

“She didn’t consent to being put in that mirror, Steven,” Connie said softly. “What does your heart say?”

“Stupid things,” he muttered. His fingers gripped tight around the gem.

“Do it,” she urged. “You know you should.”

He growled as he started to pull. The gem resisted, and he pulled harder. Connie jumped back away from him, and he looked down to see why. The water was crawling up from the ocean, forming patterns around him. His grip faltered. “This is a bad idea!”

“It just means it’s working! She said she gathered water and now we’re seeing it!” Connie said. “Don’t follow your head. Follow your heart. I know you know what’s right.”

He wanted to protest. He was trained to protest. But he gripped tight and yanked with all his strength, and with a shattering of glass, the gem came free. It flashed with blue light, rising from his hand, and the water on the beach surged up towards the gem. He stumbled back, Connie catching him before he could hit the sand, and they watched as the water formed wings on a body made of light. Then the light faded, and a deep blue gem touched down on the beach. Her breath was ragged, but she was recovering. She lifted a hand, and the water rose at her command.

“I’m free,” she said breathlessly. She whirled to the two of them, and Steven stepped in front of Connie, ready to defend her if he had to. But Lapis just closed the distance to hug him, cool water flicking onto his cheeks from her wings as she got close. He was too surprised to hug back. “Thank you, Steven. You did the right thing.” She pulled away and looked at Connie. “Thanks for arguing for me. You’re a good… whatever you are.”

“Connie,” she said blankly. “Uh, human.”

“Thanks, Connie Uh-human.” She flapped her wings. “I can get home now. I’ve gotta get away before Pearl sees me again.”

Steven wanted to defend Pearl. But he couldn’t. What if she did know about this? What if she wanted this? He knew she wouldn’t have wanted him to yank the gem free. He knew she would want him to stop Lapis from getting off planet. That didn’t seem much better. “Go, then,” he said, voice cracking. “Go home.”

Lapis smiled and turned, taking off like a rocket with two flaps of her watery wings. She was a blue dot in moments, and then completely out of sight.

“You should tell the gems,” Connie said.

“Shut up, Connie,” he returned, “and go home.”

She glared. “We’re not going to talk about it?”

“No.” He took what was left of the mirror and hurled it as far as he could, whipping it out into the sea before he looked back at her. “We’re not. We’re going to pretend this never happened. I’ll tell Pearl the mirror finally shattered and I threw it away.”

“Of all the infuriating… Why?” she shouted, fists clenching at her sides. “Because you actually felt something? Because you did the right thing? Because you weren’t a spoiled jerk for once in your _ miserable _ -”

“Because she’s going to Homeworld!” he shouted back, gesturing up at the sky. “And there are big, scary things out there! Things the gems fought for, things my  _ mom _ fought for! When we met, I protected you because that’s what I’m supposed to do. I keep Earth safe. And you know what? Earth might be very, very unsafe right now! You don’t know anything!”

“Then tell me! I can’t make good decisions if I don’t have all the information!” Her head jerked up, following his hands, and the anger slowly dimmed from her. She swallowed, looking up at the sky, knowing the vastness of space beyond it. She always did want to go to space camp. 

“What’s out there, Steven?” she asked.

“Go home, Connie.” Steven gave both her shoulders a squeeze before turning back to the house. “We’ll pretend this never happened.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time:
> 
> "Yeah, Mom would love it if I was a doctor like her," Connie said, a hanful of chocolate drizzled popcorn melting in her hand. "She doesn't want me to watch cheesey stuff like this, because she doesn't get that it's ironic."
> 
> "Do you do other stuff ironically?"
> 
> "Hang out at your house. Oh!" She smirked and crammed the mouthful of popcorn into her mouth right as her phone went off, and he giggled at the jumbled sound of her cursing. She squealed as he tugged the phone from her fingers and answered the call.
> 
> "Good afternoon, this is Connie's phone. She just took a huge bite of-" He smirked at her panic and continued respectfully, "a cashew butter and banana sandwich, but she didn't want to worry you. This is her friend Steven Universe."
> 
> "That's very sweet of you," said the firm voice, "Could I speak to your mother?"
> 
> "My mother?" he repeated, watching with an ever growing smile as Connie begin to choke on her popcorn. "Of course, Dr. Maheswaran. Let me put you on hold while I find her."


	5. Dinner Date

"Yeah, Mom would love it if I was a doctor like her," Connie said, a handful of chocolate drizzled popcorn melting in her hand. They were resting on his bed, watching the latest episode of _ Under the Knife _. “She doesn't want me to watch cheesy stuff like this, because she doesn't get that it's ironic."

Steven laughed. "Do you do other stuff ironically?"

"Hang out at your house. _ Oh! _" She smirked and crammed the mouthful of popcorn into her mouth right as her phone went off, and he giggled at the jumbled sound of her cursing. He easily plucked the phone from her fingers in her confusion, enjoying her squeal of horror as he answered the call.

"Good afternoon, this is Connie's phone. She just took a huge bite of-" He smirked at her panic and continued respectfully, "a cashew butter and banana sandwich, but she didn't want to worry you. This is her friend Steven Universe."

"That's very sweet of you," said the firm voice, "Could I speak to your mother?"

"My mother?" he repeated, watching Connie begin to choke on her popcorn. "Of course, Dr. Maheswaran. Let me put you on hold while I find her."

He stood up just to look down at her. “Did you tell your mom that I have a mother?”

She choked and gasped for air. “Maybe? And more?”

“Uh huh.”

“Just a few lies.”

“If you don’t tell me, I can’t lie for you,” he said.

She groaned, dropping her face to the mattress and shouting to be heard through the covers. “You’re enrolled in Beach City High with me, a freshman, which puts you at fifteen. I thought about fourteen but that felt like pushing it.”

He blinked. “Why? I don’t look that young.”

“Well, you sound a lot less intimidating to my parents if you’re younger,” she said, beginning to babble about her convoluted reasoning. “They definitely don’t want me hanging out with a legal adult. So, you’re three years younger to them. You want to join the military once you graduate, so you can be a weird sword guy and talk about military tactics without it being suspicious. Oh, and it’ll explain your strength. You’re also really against any kind of romantic relationship because you want to focus on serving your country and you don’t want to be another guy who gets married just because he’s deploying. Also, I don’t eat junk food while I’m over here. I think that’s everything.”

He frowned. Maybe she wasn’t going to be the best pet after all. “You know you’ve got to keep your lies straight if you want to be good at it, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m very smart. That’s all the big lies. You need to pick a gem to talk to pretty fast, Steven. Someone has to be your mom before the hold gets weird.”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna tell her I live in a poly lesbian commune, and my moms are recruiting.” He grinned and strolled off down the stairs, to where Garnet rested on the couch below..

“Steven? Steven, that was a joke. Steven!” She yelped and scrambled madly out of the bed after him. “She’ll kill me! You’ll never see me again!”

“Okay, Garnet.” Steven handed her the flip phone as Connie slid beside him, still wide eyed and breathing like she had finished a marathon. “Pretend to be my mom. Connie’s mom is really strict and she needs to know we’re normal. I’m not that great at shapeshifting my vocal cords to sound feminine.”

The girl gasped. “Hold on, you can-”

Garnet was talking, so Connie stopped. “Hello. This… is Mum Universe. Yes. The children are playing swords. Sorry, playing with swords. They’re bleeding. Oh no, they are dead. Don’t call again.” She flipped the phone closed and held it out.

“Are you _ kidding _ me?” Connie whispered.

“I panicked.”

And Steven fell to the ground, clutching his belly with hysterical laughter.

* * *

“I hope you’re happy.” Connie glared at him as she flipped her phone shut.

Steven was _ still _laughing on the floor. Every noise Connie had made while listening to her mother’s rant had sent him into another paroxysm of laughter (strategically muffled with a pillow), and he was openly crying at this point. “Yes!” He choked out. “Can’t you tell?”

“Well. Now I have to go home. And, further, my parents _ insist _on meeting you and your family.” She scowled. “You are going to bring yourself, your father, and one of your parents. I’m not losing this, Steven. You’re not going to ruin this for me.”

He panted, wiping his eyes as he stood up. “Okay. One dad, one mom, and me. That’s the rule?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

“Alright, Connie. I promise. I’ll do it.” He let out a last weak giggle. “It’ll be a great evening. Just tell me when and where.”

“I’ll tell you when I know.” She grabbed his collar and gave him a little shake. He let it happen, to giggly to bother resisting. “Don’t screw me on this, Universe. I am _ not _ giving up magic so you can have a laugh at my expense.”

* * *

“They’re late,” Connie’s mother noticed severely.

“Nearly half an hour.” Her father checked his watch. “Connie, you gave them the right address, didn’t you?”

“I checked it three times!” She pulled out her phone and checked again. “Yeah, I got it right. Hold on…” She furiously typed out _ Why are you so late?! _ to Steven and jammed her thumb into the send icon.

The response was near-instant. _ Almost there. Mom took some time to get herself together. _

Connie sighed with relief. “They’ll be here any minute, dad.”

“Good. We should’ve been eating by now.” He drummed his fingers on the table.

Connie felt a tremor. Then another. They started coming rapidly, like footsteps, before a hulking being appeared around the corner of the restaurant. She leapt to her feet, as did her parents, but Steven’s sudden voice calmed them before they could flee. “Good evening!” He called cheerily from the thing’s shoulder. “Sorry we were late. Mother had a terrible time getting made up.” Two of the six arms the being possessed lifted two humans down to the ground: Steven in one hand, and who she presumed was Greg Universe in the other. Steven held out a hand to Dr. Maheswaran to shake. “I’m Steven Universe, friend to your daughter. A pleasure to meet you.”

Dr. Maheswaran was so flummoxed that her only response was automatic. She shook his hand and replied “Dr. Priyanka Maheswaran. Pleasure to meet you too.”

“Doug,” Connie’s father said simply as he performed the same ceremony with Greg.

“Greg Universe. Good to finally meet Steven’s best friend’s family.” He chuckled nervously. “And this, uh, is my wife. Alexandrite.”

“Charmed,” the colossal woman growled with a voice like gravel, albeit very pretty gravel. Fortunately, the forty-foot Alexandrite didn’t attempt to shake Connie’s hand.

“Let’s all sit down, hmm? I think we’ve made you wait long enough.” Steven sat elegantly, Greg nervously, and Connie’s family were knocked into their chairs from the earthquake Alexandrite made as she sat on the ground.

Connie glared at Steven, but he paid her no mind. He was amazed her parents hadn’t simply run away, but if they were going to go through with this even now, he was going to have all the fun he could get from this forced meeting. He caught her eyes when her parents weren’t looking and sent her a wink, giggling as her face went from miffed to murderous.

“So,” started Priyanka, who was bound and determined to get through her script for the evening. “How did you two meet?”

Alexandrite and Greg looked up and down at one another, neither knowing how they could possibly answer. But Steven was prepared. “They met in the Clark Mountains near Smokey Peak,” Steven answered. “Back when dad was a rock climber and mom was a rescuer. They worked together to save a lost child and fell in love along the way.”

“Yes,” Greg agreed instantly. “Our story is like something from a romance novel, right, honey?”

Alexandrite, meanwhile, grabbed all twelve breadsticks and ate them silently, looking incredibly upset to be doing so.

Connie had to take three slow, deep breaths before she was sure she could speak without screaming. “Steven, you look a little pale. Would you like me to show you where the bathrooms are?”

“Won’t be necessary. I feel just rosy.” He gave her a winning smile that she knew hid a blistering smirk.

“So, what do you two do?” Her father asked.

“Oh, I used to be a musician, but these days I run the car wash down by the beach.” Greg cleared his throat. “What about you, my… dear?”

“Mother is part of a minor-league basketball team,” Steven answered for her with a grin. “She’s very tall.” This was going so much better than he could possibly have imagined.

“Can she even fit on a court?” Doug asked under his breath.

Dr. Maheswaran lightly smacked his thigh. “Don’t talk about her like she’s not there!” She hissed.

Connie stood up before anything else had an opportunity to go wrong. “I need to use the bathroom and I need help finding it. Steven, please _ help me. _” The last words came out through grit teeth and a painted-on smile.

“Oh, of course, Connie. I’ll help. I should wash my hands before the salads arrive.” He gave her a smile so victorious she nearly leapt across the table to erase it fist-first. But she managed to keep her temper from boiling over until they had walked inside together, standing in the little hall outside the restrooms where she could finally lay into him.

"You think you're so funny, don't you?" Connie snapped.

He smirked. "Yeah. That's why I'm laughing." 

"What is wrong with you?” She wanted to hit him, to throw him against the wall, to shake his obnoxious head until it finally got through to him, but that wasn’t the way to do things. Violence was rarely the answer. “Why would you bring all three of them to dinner as some kind of giant monster? What is that thing supposed to be, a colossus?"

"Alexandrite. She's the gems fused together." He glared, all humor gone. "Don't call her a thing or a monster."

"You chose to bring them like that without an explanation! You don't get to lecture me on what words I use when you did this on purpose!" she snarled. "I don't understand why you can't take this seriously! I don't understand why you want to risk them taking me away from you!"

"It's not a risk!"

"Not anymore. It's a certainty. Good job, Steven." 

He was up on her again, a hair's width away. There was no time or space for romantic musings or how pretty her face looked in the dim light. He thought of far away empires and whispered fairy tales from Garnet. His blood was already hot from her words about fusion earlier. She didn’t understand why any of it was wrong. She was no better than a Homeworld gem, never taught another way.

He wanted to soothe her the way the gems soothed him, because she had to be breaking inside, even though her face was so still. She just didn’t understand that she lived under tyranny. He spoke low and steady. “They don't get to tell you what to do, or who to be with. You're a human being. You have choices. You have a future. You get to do whatever you want, and your parents can't stop you."

She shook her head and took a step back, giving them a bit of breathing room. Still no despair on her face, or hope or realization. "That isn't how it works. They'll ground me. They'll take away my phone. They'll lock down my computer. I'll never see you again, and they'll stop letting me roam around town."

His fingers and thumb caught her chin, holding her steady, but ready to drop her at a moment’s notice. She didn’t look upset, just exasperated. He explained, "Connie, I will rip your house apart before I let them lock you away. My whole life has been preparing to fight tyrants bigger and stronger than them. They can't have you. You're mine, and I’ll protect you.."

"For heaven's sake," she whispered, voice shaky. "You could just pretend to be a normal guy. You don't need to rip my house apart."

Steven’s forehead came to rest against hers and he let out a shaky breath. So that’s what this was about. He should have guessed. “I’m not normal. You wanted me to lie because you were ashamed of me, and now you’re mad because I’m not lying in the way you wanted me to. You’re awful.”

She jerked back, eyes wide. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s why you lie about everything!” he snapped. “You said I’m _ human _ and I’m _ younger _ and I’m joining the _ military _? You’re hiding everything about me! Even the stuff I thought you thought was cool! Why do you even hang out with me if you’re ashamed of all of it?”

“I’m not _ ashamed _ ! I’m lying because it’s _ easier _!” she hissed. “Just like you haven’t told the gems about Lapis. Way easier not to say anything, right? You’re not ashamed of letting her go home, are you?”

“Of course I am!” he shouted. She waved her arms frantically, gesturing down, and he dropped his voice. “Yeah, I’m ashamed. Pearl would have never wanted that. None of them would. I put the whole planet at risk. The planet I’m supposed to protect. I haven’t even got to Homeworld and I already blew it.”

“Steven,” she murmured. She took a cautious step forward, laying her hand on his arm. “You didn’t. You did the right thing. If you tell the gems, they’ll tell you the same thing. You don’t think they’d actually tell you to leave someone trapped in a mirror, would they? Forced to be alive and thinking and not able to move at all? It’s torture, Steven.”

He swallowed. “I’ll think about telling them.”

“You should.”

“I said I would,” he snapped. “But, back to your stupid parents. If you’re not lying because you’re ashamed of me, then why are you lying at all?”

She groaned. “Because I _ like _ my parents and I _ like _ having a place to live and I _ don’t _ want you to rip my house apart because my parents won’t let me see you. My parents aren’t going to be okay with magic and danger and older boys.”

“Why?”

“They think I’ll lose an arm, or worse, get knocked up.” Connie crossed her arms.

He tried to regain some composure and cool. "I'm not letting someone useful slip away, not after all the time and magic I've invested. So, if you don't want me to rip your house apart, how do we fix this?"

"Catch a bus to Ocean Town and try to found an ecological commune with some sustainable living techniques. Maize is native to the area," she said sounding almost dreamy about the idea.

He blinked and leaned back. "What?"

"Mmm. You're right. Didn’t work last time I tried it.” She smirked and giggled. “But I’m really good at lying to my mom and dad. Here’s what we do - Alexandrite defuses into your three moms, and they all act like super strict parents.”

"You want them to act like your parents," he said slowly. "Because then your parents will think that being with me is as good as being at their house."

"It's a weird living situation, and it's magical, but we can come up with a decent lie." She glared. “One that does _ not _ involve the word commune.”

"A sob story," Steven said quickly. They were strict parents, but parents, weren’t they? He had plenty of parent figures all around, and he knew what set them off the most. "Play on their empathy. My mother is dead. I don't like to talk about it. I couldn't choose between the gems and made a stupid mistake. I just wanted to impress them that bad."

Connie whistled. "Ooh. Nice work. You're good at that."

"I have to be," he replied. "If I'm ever captured by Homeworld gems, I'll have to lie about who I am. All the gems helped me with it. I wasn't born good at it."

"So what were you born good at?"

He thought about that, rubbing his chin. "Understanding how people feel."

"Hard disagree," she deadpanned, but continued on before he could give an impassioned defense of his empathy. "Okay, so I need to get my parents out of the way so you can tell Alexandrite the plan. Which means I’ll probably have to… Oh no. Oh, _ no _.”

“What?”

She laughed, face starting to redden. “I mean, I’ve got a _ great _ idea on how to get my parents to take me off alone to yell at me for a while, that has a _ chance _ of me not getting grounded for all time, and we don’t even have to leave this spot. But I don’t know how you’re going to like it.”

He stared at her face. Flushed. Nervous shifting. Chewing her lip. Her eyes looking him up and down. Steven closed his eyes and groaned. “We’re doing the fake dating thing, aren’t we?”

“Secret teen lovers, giggling and whispering sweet nothings to each other after sneaking away from the parents.” She cringed. “Classic move.”

He wrinkled his nose. “It sounds like it’d be easier to make out.”

“That’s not easier! You’re just being a weirdo.” she snapped.

“I’m not good at sweet things! How am I supposed to say? You’re an adequate liar-” he began, about to follow it up with more lukewarm charming (but true!) statements, when she started growling at him.

“For the _ love of all that is good _! You don’t actually have to have anything sweet to say! You’re whispering! They can’t hear you!”

“Connie?” called her father’s voice.

“Fake it,” she hissed, and threw herself into his arms.

He stared for a moment, oddly giddy at the idea of finding himself in the middle of one of his favorite fanfic and romance novel tropes, and slipped his arms around her waist. Steven would have to be careful she didn’t really fall in love with him, since that’s how the stories always seemed to end up. He grinned as he brought her close, and summoned up his best efforts at _ charming boyfriend _. “Do you like poetry?”

She smiled just as sweetly back, almost a touch of lovesickness to it. Alright, she was more than an _ adequate _ liar. She was a _ good _ liar. Her voice was a saccharine purr, “Not usually, but I think I could make an exception. Did you write something?”

“No. Just memorized.” His eyes flicked to her approaching father, and he spoke in a deeper voice, a little louder, so that it would carry without sounding like shouting. 

_ I love you only because it’s you the one I love; _

_ I hate you deeply, and hating you _

_ Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you _

_ Is that I do not see you but love you blindly. _

The shocked, “What?!” came at him from both sides. One from the very flushed, very wide eyed Connie. Which seemed very rude. He could read. He enjoyed poetry. Pearl and Garnet especially loved romantic poetry, and he had a handful of his favorites memorized. He had to do something all day, didn’t he?

And the other was from her father, who was quickly shoving them apart. Steven let it happen, trying not to giggle as Mr. Maheswaran grabbed Connie’s wrist and dragged her off, ranting about pregnancy and being too young to date. Steven rushed off behind them to catch Alexandrite, and the rest of the night proceeded as planned.

Well, for the most part.

Connie was going to be calculating how long she was grounded in some sort of terrifying abstract punishment that involved elaborate algebra equations being solved on an abacus, where X equaled the number of days she would be quarantined in her room. Steven was grounded from TV for one thousand years, because Garnet was really knocking it out of the park this week with playing the part of his mother.

And Steven barely had to fake the dread and misery at all. He just had to think about how he was going to tell them about Lapis, and it was all smeared across his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is a bit from Pablo Neruda's "I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You".
> 
> Next time - An interlude. Steven tells the gems about Lapis, and Garnet has a chat with Connie.


	6. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven tells the gems about Lapis. Garnet tells Connie about the gems.

“You’re probably wondering why I’ve gathered you here today,” Steven began, looking over the rest of the gems. Garnet’s face was as calm and loving as ever. Amethyst looked interested for once. Pearl looked confident, but there was a roundness to her eyes that told him there was anxiety lurking underneath it. She could probably tell he was scared, and she was scared for him. “I have important news.”

“Did you learn a new power?” Amethyst asked eagerly. “I can try to teach you shapeshifting again.”

He winced at the memory. So much adorable horror. “Uh, no. I did something recently, something kind of bad. And, um, I know the plan is really important. The plan is everything. So, if I messed it up, I’d get it if you were mad. Or if you needed me to go live with Dad again. Or if you didn’t love me anymore.” He hated the way his voice sounded, frail and weak with the fear of failure.

“Steven,” Pearl murmured. “Of course we’ll love you. You’re not even half a century old! Amethyst could barely talk at your age. We know you’re bound to make mistakes.”

Garnet nodded. “We love you, Steven, no matter what. Tell us what’s wrong.”

Steven gulped. He closed his eyes, taking a few steadying breaths like Garnet had taught him, then spoke, “The mirror didn’t shatter. I mean, it did, but not in the way you’d think. I noticed, or, Connie and I noticed… See, there was a gem on the back. It was cracked. And the mirror was kind of talking, like a person, so I tried healing it.”

Amethyst laughed while the other two stiffened. “Oh man! Your healing is messing up again, huh? Don’t worry. It’s probably just some weird hormone stuff now that you’ve got a cute person hanging around. I bet it’ll be back to normal in no time. Didn’t think you could have shattering spit. Spooky diamond power.”

“What? No!” He shook his head, ignoring the twist of anger at her assertion that he could be failing at something so basic, something he had mastered years ago. “I healed her! Her name is Lapis Lazuli, and she-”

Pearl gasped. “That’s not possible. Gems that are harvested for materials have no way of being returned. They’re cracked beyond repair! They’re no more than shards! If you could heal the gem in the mirror…” She stared at him, horror dawning in her eyes. “Steven, where is she?”

“She’s not on Homeworld’s side,” he began.

“Steven!” she gasped, rushing to him. Her hands rested gently on his cheeks, trembling already. “Please, Steven, tell me you managed to bubble her before she got off planet!”

“Pearl.” His voice cracked. “She promised she wouldn’t tell them.”

Her comforting hands were gone, replaced with nothing but fear and panic and  _ anger _ . “And you  _ believed _ her? She’d say anything to get home after being trapped all these years!”

“But that’s why it’d be wrong to keep her prisoner! She was trapped for so long! You know I’m good at reading people. I-”

“Rose thought she was too,” Pearl snapped. “You can’t trust your judgement on these things. How many times have I told you? Rose was always swept away doing what she wanted. She was impulsive and emotional and she didn’t think things through and you need-”

“I need to be better! I know!” he shouted, stepping back. “I am better! I thought about it, Pearl. I really thought about it! It was wrong to leave her in the mirror! It was wrong to keep her prisoner! Setting her free was the only thing to do!”

Pearl looked ready to shout, but Garnet put a hand on her shoulder, quieting her. The fusion quieted Steven with a look as well. “This is the executive decision of a leader. A diamond. If you're going to make decisions like this, then you are saying that you are prepared to take on that role.”

Pearl scowled. “Just because he looks like an adult doesn’t mean he is one. He’s looked like that ever since we brought him to the temple, and he was seven then! He’s still a child!”

“Then he must feel very grown up,” Garnet said coolly. “This is your choice, Steven.”

He nodded, just once. Firm. No hesitation. Just like her.

“Then it’s your responsibility, no matter what happens.” Her hand went from Pearl’s shoulder to Steven’s head, and she smiled a little. “We’ve been preparing you for this. Now it’s time to start trusting you.”

“Thank you,” he said, dread curling in his stomach. He didn’t want to seem so weak, so soft, when they had always told him he was going to be a powerful leader some day, but tears welled up in his eyes as he asked, “You all still love me, right? You said you would, no matter what.”

“Oh, Steven. Of course.” Pearl murmured. She hugged him tight, and the warmth of it made him sob with relief into her shoulder. “We love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

“Even if I’m the worst diamond?” he whimpered.

She stiffened against him. “You could  _ never _ be. You care, Steven. You set an imprisoned gem free, even though it was a risk. There’s mercy in you. Love. That’s so much better than the others.”

Amethyst’s arms wrapped around his waist. “We can deal with anything together. It’ll be okay.”

“You’ll be the best diamond,” Garnet promised.

And most of that was comforting. He talked through his tears, and gave them every detail of what had happened. 

* * *

Connie had a relatively normal day up to the point that she was walking home. She was late, and the streets around the school were mostly deserted in the early evening. Normally she liked walking home like this. The leaves were changing and falling. It'd be too cold soon, but right now it was just brisk enough for a jacket to be comfortable. Every cold breath made her feel alive and awake.

But when she saw Garnet standing in her way on the sidewalk, her sharp inhale only froze her.

"Come here, Connie. I'm not here to harm you." Garnet's voice was smooth, but icy, her face only reflecting Connie's fear back at her. "I'm just here to talk."

Connie watched herself smooth from fearful wide eyes to calm determination. It was only Garnet. She was intimidating, but never mean. The girl took a few steps closer. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk to you alone." Garnet leaned against the chain-link fence next to the sidewalk. "And I knew you'd be here alone, on this day, at this time."

"I..." Connie's voice faltered, but her mind raced. Had she been followed? No, that didn’t make sense. Garnet had said she  _ knew _ she’d be here alone. The gems were magic, and the idea seemed too good to be true, but she had to ask, "Can you see the future?"

Garnet's head turned to her for a moment. "Hm. I see why he likes you. You're clever." She adjusted her visor. "I see possibilities. The future isn't a book to be read, but some things are more likely than others. I saw that you would stay late today, and would have no reason not to take your normal route."

"That's amazing." And it was, but it sent a thrill of fear through her heart. Garnet was strong, and that was bad enough. But there was no way she could even get lucky against someone who could read her intentions before she acted. This was going to go however Garnet wanted.

"We know about Lapis and the mirror," Garnet continued. "And we know your part in it."

"It's good that he told you," Connie forced out. And it was, but she was beginning to wish that maybe he hadn't. "And what did you think about that?"

"That he made a mistake. One we'll have to live with." The ice was back, absolute zero this time, and Connie struggled not to freeze in it.

"She was a prisoner for no reason. She wasn't a threat." She was trying to protest, but it came out as a plea for mercy. "She deserved--" 

"You had no idea what she could do!" Garnet cut across with a hand to silence her. "Lapis Lazuli gems are planet shapers. She could tear mountains down. She could lift the oceans over the land and drown everything. And you demanded he let her go without a thought to the consequences." The ice had melted and boiled, and Connie could feel the glare from under the mirror.

"That's not a good reason to keep her locked in a mirror!" Connie snapped back. "You don't get to decide someone is a threat because they  _ might  _ hurt you! Everyone gets a chance!" 

The gem stared back, and Connie felt much too small to be yelling at her. Garnet lifted a hand to her face and removed the visor in a flash of light. Connie realized she'd been wrong. It wasn't a glare in her eyes--it was utter disdain. Glaring would require her to see Connie as worth the effort to be angry. 

"Five thousand years ago, we fought to keep the life on this planet safe from Homeworld. From the gem empire. And we lost terribly the moment they turned their full attention on us." Garnet grimaced at the memory. "Your salvation is that they thought they lost something precious to them, and that loss made them turn away when they were finished. Otherwise, this planet would be a barren rock. Your ancestors would never have been born." Her three eyes narrowed. "And your actions threaten to remind them that we exist."

Connie's heart thundered in her ears. Steven had mentioned Homeworld. That he was keeping Earth safe. But he hadn't said this. "I-I didn't know," she stammered.

"I know. You're young. You're still learning, just like Steven. But you must understand. We have raised Steven to prepare him for the choices he will have to make. He represents the only hope that Earth will remain safe in the future. And anything that affects him threatens that hope." The visor flashed back into place. "The Crystal Gems handle threats to Earth. I trust that you understand.”

"Yes, ma'am," she croaked.

Garnet stared another long moment. "I'm not trying to scare you away." She leaned back again, turning her head and freeing Connie from her own sweating reflection. "I want you to grow closer to him. Steven is happier since he met you. He smiles more. He's more snark and less bite. You helped him make a mistake, but on the whole, it's good that you visit him. He needs things like you to remember why Earth is worth saving. He could so easily end up like the others."

Connie licked her lips, too curious to have the good sense to keep quiet. "The other whats?" 

A few moments passed. Garnet made no attempt to answer. 

Connie couldn't help breaking the silence first. "I won't apologize for freeing Lapis. She didn't deserve a prison. But I'll try to be more aware in the future, now that I know the stakes."

“I know you will.” Garnet nodded. “I’ll be watching.”

“That’s… reassuring?” Connie’s mouth quirked into a half-frown. Garnet was impossible to read when she wanted to be. 

The fusion crossed her arms and stared down at the ground. "What I don't understand is how I missed it. I check the future regularly. Something with this much impact should have made ripples I could feel even if I missed the key moments. But I saw nothing. And everything is in flux now."

"How does it work?" Connie asked.

Garnet was silent, and Connie thought that she was refusing to answer again, but eventually she spoke. "The immediate future is almost always completely clear. The further I go, the more futures there are to see. I have to trust my judgment, to decide which possibilities are truly possible. Steven's actions were not in my visions. They should have been impossible."

"If you looked and missed them, you must've overlooked something," Connie said, choosing her words with care. "Maybe you don't know Steven as well as you think you do."

Garnet pushed off the fence immediately. "I know Steven," she rebutted icily. "I know everything he plans. I know how he acts. I know what he'll do."

Connie always fumbled with social cues, and the self-doubt in Garnet flew right over her head. But logic - that worked just fine. The holes in Garnet’s stories stuck out to her clear as day, and she asked, "Then how did you miss it?"

Garnet stared back. Then, without another word, she turned and leapt away, her first jump taking her to a nearby rooftop, and the next carrying her out of sight.

Connie was halfway home before she realized that Garnet had fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Echo here. Just so you know, our move is very much underway, so there might be a bit of a longer break between this chapter and the next. But the next one is worth waiting for.
> 
> Next time:
> 
> They started to smile. Giggle. Their hands ran through long, lovely curls. So pretty. So handsome. They _felt_ beautiful. Confidence was starting to buzz in now, powerful and heady and borderline hubris? No. They deserved to feel this good. _You're amazing._ That was from who to who? It didn't matter. It was true. They _were_ amazing. They got to their feet and towered at nearly seven feet tall and they were _glorious._
> 
> Not just beautiful (but they were beautiful, of course), but incredible. They were a knight from a storybook. A prince. A ferocious warrior. Clever and funny and strong and _everything._ They twirled and laughed and raced along the beach (and fell down a lot, but they were born five minutes ago, so that was fine). Their feet kicked up the surf and everything felt really right for once.


	7. Alone Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven and Connie fuse.
> 
> Trigger warning: A couple short instances of accidental (and uncaring) misgendering from Kevin.

“Fusion,” Steven said dramatically. Connie watched him from her spot on the sand, vaguely amused by the way he loved to grandstand. He was pacing a little, giving his lecture like a professor to an auditorium full of students, despite the fact that she was the only one there. “Fusion is when two or more gems become one, like with Alexandrite. It’s what their relationship is, who they are together, and every fusion is greater than the sum of its parts.”

“Uh huh,” Connie said. “Can _ you _ do it?”

“Because I’m half human?” He grinned.

“Because you’re a jerk.”

His grin dropped to a scowl. “Garnet says I’ll be great at it some day.”

She giggled, leaning forward. “Ooooh. So you _ haven’t _ been able to fuse with anyone? But you definitely _ could _. So that means it’s a problem with your personality.”

“Stop enjoying this,” he ordered.

“Stop being so enjoyable!” she retorted. She raised an eyebrow as she looked up at him from the beach. “Steven, did you drag me all the way out here to try to fuse with you? You’re so sweet. I thought we were just going to have s’mores.”

He flushed, stepping back. “No! You’re a human! You don’t have a body made of light. There’s no way you could fuse.”

She pushed to her feet with a grunt and strolled up to him, and he did his best to stand his ground against the teasing look in her eyes. Connie grabbed his hand, fiddling with his fingers, her slimmer, more delicate fingers poking and tugging at his. Steven’s heart stuttered at her grin as she toyed with his hand. “So, what exactly are these made out of?”

He tugged it back, rubbing it on his pants. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s partly light, I guess? But it’s also not really light.”

She crossed her arms. “If we could fuse, how would we do it? Hold hands? Kiss? Say some magic words or think about the same thing or _ feel _ the same thing?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. But usually we just dance.”

“Dance?” she said with a sudden squeak in her voice.

He eyed her, picking up on the tiny lines on her face as he puzzled out what the squeak was for. “Yeah. We dance. Fusion is about getting in sync with one another, being on the same page. Dancing is an easy way to do it, but gems that are really in sync can do it without any help. If we had three Pearls around, they could fuse into a big Pearl.”

“There’s more than one Pearl?” she frowned. “And you just call her Pearl. Isn’t that like naming Lion… oh. Huh. That’s a pattern of laziness.”

She was changing the topic, trying to get under his skin, too. Steven arched an eyebrow, slowly holding out his hand. “Hey, Connie? Do you want to dance with me?”

She took a step back, going rigid. “I can’t fuse. Don’t make fun of me.”

“You were going to try until I said it was dancing.” He took a step forward, hand still offered. “You know how to dance, right? You just move to the music. Follow the beat. You’ve probably read a book about people doing it?”

She groaned, a blush crawling up her cheeks. “Steven!”

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me,” he said, nearly singing as he took her hand and pulled her closer. Connie sighed, willingly letting him tug her along, until they were flush together. He tapped her nose. “Talk.”

She stuck her tongue out, then said, “I don’t like being looked at. And I don’t feel comfortable with feeling vulnerable. Singing. Dancing. I tried to go to a dance once, but it felt like everyone was staring at me. I hated it.”

A life without dancing. A life without singing. Steven swallowed at the dread of it, the incomprehensible awfulness of it, as he took her hands in his. That couldn’t stand. She couldn’t spend her whole life too afraid to ever enjoy music. “Dance with me,” he said. “It’s just me.”

“There’s no music,” she whispered.

“I have a phone.”

She shook her head. “Why? I thought you said I couldn’t fuse.”

“It’s not for fusing.” He fidgeted a little, searching for a reason that sounded less needy than _ I hate seeing you upset _. “Music is amazing. Everyone should be able to sing. Everyone should be able to dance. If you live on my colony, you should have the choice to have fun and express yourself.”

She laughed, her worried expression melting into soft affection. “You know, you could just say you like me and you want to dance with me.”

“So could you.”

Her eyes went wide as he twirled her around. Steven’s free hand reached for his phone, and he flicked on a song. It was one with an easy beat, wordless, so they could worry about singing another time. For now, he focused on her face, the tension in her body, and delighted in how quickly it faded away with his smile. They were swaying, then bouncing, twirling in the sand. There was laughter, cheering, silliness with no one around to see, and, for a moment, Steven thought they were actually getting along.

And then, like the idiot he was, he tripped. He closed his eyes as he braced himself for the impact and the mocking voice that would follow, but warmth curled around his back. He found himself looking up at her smiling face. He laughed, reddening at how it had all gone wrong, and let his forehead bump against hers as Connie giggled back.

And then everything was warm and fuzzy.

\---------------------

She wasn't she. He wasn't he. Their minds (mind?) slammed with euphoria and confusion all at once. They fell back, breathing hard as things meshed. When they spoke, they weren't quite sure who was doing it, passing a single mouth back and forth in a confusing mess, babbling to themselves (themself?), "I'm supposed to be she. | The gems are she, but I'm not. I'm a he. | Yeah, I'm a she. | But I'm a he. | So together we're not. | I'm they. We're they. |This is weird. | Do you not like that? | Do you? | We can stop. | No. | It's good and that's what feels weird. | Okay. | Okay? | Okay."

They breathed out together. They ran their hands slowly across their own body. This was new and different, but that was okay. They were figuring things out together. No trading off control. Just them getting situated. Stronger legs than Connie's, but curvier than Steven's. Thinner than Steven, thicker than Connie. They were intersex. They had breasts. Their hands rubbed against the grain on their cheeks and found stubble there. There was _ so much _ hair.

They started to smile. Giggle. Their hands ran through long, lovely curls. So pretty. So handsome. They _ felt _ beautiful. Confidence was starting to buzz in now, powerful and heady and borderline hubris? No. They deserved to feel this good. _ You're amazing. _ That was from who to who? It didn't matter. It was true. They _ were _ amazing. They got to their feet and towered at nearly seven feet tall and they were _ glorious _.

Not just beautiful (but they were beautiful, of course), but incredible. They were a knight from a storybook. A prince. A ferocious warrior. Clever and funny and strong and _ everything _. They twirled and laughed and raced along the beach (and fell down a lot, but they were born five minutes ago, so that was fine). Their feet kicked up the surf and everything felt really right for once.

They were a little bit Steven and Connie, a little bit not. They took stock of that as best they could, digging down through tangled threads of emotion and minds to find the source of the euphoria. They didn't want to lose it, so they had to know where it was. Nestled in the core of them, deep down, was truth. Honesty. Vulnerability. They were a friendship, deep and strong and loving, and... Well, to be honest, not exactly ideal. That was fine. Everyone had flaws. They could work on that. But, as long as Steven and Connie were friends, they would be joy. If Steven and Connie weren't friends, they couldn't exist. Perfect. They existed to be happiness, like Garnet existed to be love.

"We have to tell Garnet!" They gasped. Knowledge flooded in from Steven, and then passed along to Connie. Garnet was a _ fusion _. Garnet had to know. They rushed back into the house, their voice a giddy shriek, "Garnet!" 

She was there, strong arms wrapping them up and twirling them around. The house was filled with laughter, even after Garnet set them down. Her rich, warm voice was overflowing with pride and love. "I told Steven it would happen one day. I told him he'd be great at it."

Amethyst spun them around, her hands resting eagerly on their belly. Her eager face looked up at them, grinning like crazy. "What's your name? Coven. Conen. Stevnie. Stevonnie. Ste-" 

"Stevonnie!" they gasped. "That one."

"This can't be appropriate," Pearl mumbled, giving them a sideways look. "Or safe. They should probably defuse immediately." 

"They'll be fine," Garnet assured her, turning back to Stevonnie. "Steven knows what fusion is. Ground yourself in that. You are an experience. A relationship. Love."

"Friendship," Stevonnie agreed.

Pearl raised her eyebrow. "Oh, they're agreeing that they're friends now?"

They shrugged. "It's what I am. They can call themselves what they want."

She frowned, starting to storm forward. "You _ are _ them. You should understand that! You're fused with a human and you don’t underst-" 

Garnet held up a hand. "Let them work it out on their own. They're new. All questions. I wasn’t sure who I was the first time either, Pearl. That wasn’t wrong.” There was a tense look between the two, just for a moment, and Pearl turned away. Garnet smiled at Stevonnie. “Go on. Go figure out who you are." 

"Yes, ma'am!" Stevonnie said. They ruffled Amethyst's hair and rushed out the door.

For an hour, everything was a blur of joy. They were strong and fast and (as a poorly made jump off a cliff proved) incredibly durable and self-healing. They liked their body. They liked what they could do. Everything was wonderful and physical and bubbly.

And then they started talking to themself, trading their mouth back and forth like when they first fused, though at a slower, easier pace. "You _ liiiiiiike _ me," the more Connie part of them said, giggling. 

It turned into his giggle, lower and fuller. "You like _ me _. You can't tease me if you like it too!" 

"Can too."

"You're supposed to treat me respectfully." They grinned and tapped the pink diamond in their navel. It sent a half-familiar, half-bizarre feeling shooting through them, like clutching a beloved stuffed animal to their heart. It was their gem, part of them, and touching it was always a comfort.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Stevonnie smirked and slowly traced a finger around the gem. "I'll be respectful with _ my _ Diamond." 

That was not at _ all _ like a beloved stuffed animal. It was all heat and greed and yearning. Stevonnie squeaked, yanking their hands back. That was enough physical stuff. Their heart was pounding, their body doing too many strange things at once to think about. Connie blamed Steven. Steven blamed Connie. They had been innocent and not innocent, flirting and not, greedy and confused. Nothing meshed. They were going to fight, they were going to split. 

The fight stopped immediately, determination in Stevonnie's eyes. They were _ not _. This was fun. It was going to keep being fun. What else could they do? Something fun. Something exciting. A sound from their belly broke up their thoughts and they grinned. Something to stop their stomach from growling. 

"That’ll work," Stevonnie said, and headed to the Big Donut. As they strolled up to the door, they saw Sadie inside, blond hair tousled and bright eyes dim. She smiled and waved in a way that said she was shy but interested, curious about who they were. But there were circles under her eyes and a little tiredness in her smile and the way her shoulders slumped that said it was the end of a long shift. There was relief - _ stopstopstop _

Stevonnie gasped and stumbled back, clutching their chest. "Connie? What's wrong?"

"That's a lot," they said, hand over their mouth. "That's so much. There's so much on her face. That's how Steven sees people. That's how he reads their faces." 

"Well, yeah. And... Connie sees it..." Things swirled strangely in combined memories. Flatter. Simpler. The complexity and intricacies were suddenly too confusing and subtle to grasp. Exact same face, completely different mind. "Oh. Ooh. That's surreal. Okay. Should we not look at people?"

"No! I _ like _ it! I just didn't expect it. When you said you were good at reading people, you meant it." They laughed and shook their head. "Okay. We can read people like Steven. Let's go try that out." 

They headed in, making plans for exactly what they were going to do. Steven had learned how to command attention. After years of training with the gems, he could stop a conversation with a firm word. He could shout a room into silence. He could occasionally manage a speech which fumbled over words, but was rousing and heartfelt nevertheless. He’d never tried flirting before. It was all wordplay and winking and cleverness.

Connie was all wordplay and winking and cleverness, but despite her mother’s best efforts, attention made her wilt. The idea of being bold enough to flirt with someone, to draw their attention and be the focus of someone’s gaze, was enough to make her nauseous and palms sweaty.

Stevonnie strolled into the room with the confidence of a prince, and spoke with the eloquence of someone who read far too many books. They put their elbows on the counter as they leaned in and sighed dramatically, “It’s a tragedy that I’m the only person here to see you tonight. What kind of monster makes someone work an evening shift alone?”

“Well, you know, retail.” Sadie smiled, a blush crawling up her cheeks. “I haven’t seen you around.”

“That’s because I was born a few hours ago.” They winked.

Sadie giggled, leaning forward as well. “What does that mean?”

“That’s you’re the first woman I’ve ever met. Lucky me.” They grinned, and knowledge flitted from Steven to Connie that the gems were not women, but didn’t mind being seen as such. Knowledge circled between the two that _ they _ would very much mind being seen as such. “What’s your bestselling donut? I’m guessing glazed, because it’s the most traditionally attractive, but I think I wanna try something crazy tonight.”

Another giggle from Sadie, the flush spreading up to her ears. “Something crazy, huh? Well, I’ve got a few things worth trying. Give me a minute.”

Stevonnie watched as Sadie bagged donuts with their heart fluttering in their chest. She really was affected by them. They’d have to try this on more people. The brown paper bag slid across the table and they asked, “What do I owe you?”

Sadie considered that for a moment, then bit her lip. "I'll trade you for them."

Stevonnie snorted, cocking their head. "Bartering systems aren't typically as useful as currency, but they can be more effective at small scale interactions. Is this an independent business?"

Sadie grinned, pushing them the donuts a little more. "Technically not independent, but we're open to do business with other franchises. So if you wanted to come back to my place and negotiate...?" 

"Come back to..." Stevonnie asked. Their face suddenly flushed as it all clicked into place. Flirting existed for a _ reason _, and they had clearly been successful. Nervous giggles bubbled out of them. "Oh, I wasn't... Well, uh, I guess we were. I've just never... We never... I'll just pay, thanks." Their voice cracked as they fumbled for their wallet. Wallets? Steven's wallet. Connie could - No. Steven's wallet.

Sadie laughed, blushing herself. "Sorry. Did I read that wrong? I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"No, you’re great. You’re really nice. I'm just really dumb." They slammed a twenty on the counter. "Keep all the change as an apology. I've gotta go."

They burst outside, mind reeling. They had been propositioned. That was some kind of sex thing back there. But she was with Lars? Other franchises. What was… oh, like, they could see other people. They were open. Together and open. And open to _ them _, Stevonnie. They tottered somewhere between euphoria and catastrophe, and flung themself into the former so they could stay together.

"We are... _ attractive _ ," Stevonnie said slowly, voice dropping down to a purr. They chuckled, sweeping their foot across the boardwalk as they twirled. That felt so _ nice _ . Sadie had wanted them. _ Wanted _. It was so nice to be wanted. Needed. Adored. So very not lonely.

They didn't like that word. Lonely. They cringed away from it with every part of themself. Eating lunch standing because they couldn't sit at anyone's table. A long stretch of empty sand. A home so quiet you could hear a pin drop, the only sound a ukulele/violin. They were humming to themself, because the boardwalk was quiet and they were alone. Which was fine. They were alone together, weren't they? That wasn't being alone at all. Any loneliness was an illusion, to be pushed down and away and blissfully ignored. There was something better to focus on.

They were glorious, weren't they? They loved that word. They sunk into it, everything liquid and warm, their brain a foggy haze of <strike>hubris</strike> perfection. They could take on the world like this. Steven believed Connie was confident. Connie believed Steven was confident. Together, they were boiling with it. A simmering, shimmering pot of sensuality and grace, with every step, every motion, filled with the poise of someone anyone would long to be.

Sour Cream was staring, with a look that was familiar to Steven only second hand. Desire. _ This _ is what it felt like to be desired. Their heart thudded with happiness as the plucked the flier from his hand. "A rave? And you're throwing it, right?"

The boy nodded. Oh, it was easy. Stevonnie leaned forward, smiling and winking with Steven's easy charm, and Connie supplied the words, "I guess DJs talk more with their hands than their mouths, huh?"

A flush across his cheeks. Flirting! They were flirting again! And it was working. Of course it was. They were perfection. He was saying something, details about the rave, and Stevonnie found it a little hard to focus on it. It wasn't praise. It wasn't worship of the god(dess) they were. Was it that hard to pay a compliment or two? To speak nothing but adoring words when they were nothing but perfection? Didn't he understand what they needed?

"I'll be there," Stevonnie said quickly. They could dance. Could they dance? Yes. Of course. They could do anything. And people would praise them and people would love them and the world was a single <strike>obsessed</strike> point of <strike>needing</strike> a place to find praise. They brushed their hair back as they turned away. "Thank you so much for the invitation."

"You're welcome," he breathed.

Good. Good. So good. They could dance in front of people and they could get the attention they deserved. No one ever looked at them. <strike>They couldn’t stand people looking at them,</strike> and they loved it when people looked at them. That was a mess of contradictions. They finished their donuts quickly, sucking their fingers clean of icing as they replayed the conversations with Sadie and Sour Cream, searching for details. What had they done right? <strike>Wrong?</strike> Could they do it better? Surely. They could learn from that and be better and wheedle and flirt and never be alone again. Could there ever be a thing as too much attention? Stevonnie giggled, nearly stumbling as it turned into a full, bent over laugh. No! Of course not.

Their bare feet raced over thuddy boardwalk and cold sand, until they found themself stepping onto the cool tile of a neon lit rave. There were glowsticks everywhere, people covered in paint that shone under the blacklights. It was a party. They had never been to a party, not a single part of them. _ Yes yes yes _ they could dance! People would like them!<strike> It was scary.</strike> They could be cool at a party and <strike>it wouldn't feel bad or sour</strike>. Attention would feel as good as they always dreamed it would, like they knew it would if they could nail down the formula.

They danced.

And people watched.

And all the bliss they had felt turned to ash on their tongue as the panic attack slammed down.

Steven had never had a panic attack before. Or, at least, nothing he’d classify as one. When Steven panicked, there had always been things around that were panic worthy. A giant monster about to smash you into a bloody pulp? Panic was an appropriate response, and there was an appropriate thing to do with all that messy adrenaline - punch the monster.

But there was nothing here to punch, nothing to shout at or threaten. There was just a heart pounding so loud their head ached. Their hands shook hard as they stared at them, and knowledge flowed in from Connie. Deep breaths. Back against the wall. Try to coast around it, drift around the swirling vortex of fear and anxiety that would drag you down and down and down until you were a sobbing wreck on the floor.

“This isn’t fair,” they whispered, voice cracking. “We’re the cool person at a party. We’re getting attention! It’s supposed to feel good, right? We’re supposed to be confident. We _ are _confident. Aren’t we? Why aren’t-?”

A hand on the wall beside them. A man. They stumbled back, still horribly off-kilter from the barely managed attack. He was looking them up and down. Stevonnie’s mind conjured up foxes and rabbits, and found their pulse racing like the prey in the equation. Their eyes narrowed, their chin jutting forward. “What do you want?”

“To dance with the coolest person here,” he said with a grin. “You’re perfect. I’m perfect. Let’s show Beach City what they’re missing, baby.”

That wasn’t… where was the word play? Being coy? Where were the feelings of testing boundaries and winking at the line between platonic and romantic intentions? They didn’t feel good. They weren’t leaning forward or winking or smiling. They were nearly _ crying _ . Everything about it was wrong, like watching someone hammer a screw. Like watching someone battering ram a door that might have unlocked if you _ asked _. They took another step back, and the man took another step forward.

Steven had done that to Connie earlier. It hadn’t felt like this. They didn’t _ know _ this man.

“I’m Kevin. You?”

“Stevonnie.” They narrowed their eyes, anxiety switching out for anger. “I don’t like being called baby.”

“Okay, girl-”

_ Wrong _. No. Bad, awful, disgust and discomfort beating against their brain. They shook their head hard. “No! Not girl. We’re not a girl.”

“Sorry, just made a guess.” He held up his hands, not sounding sorry at all. The only thing they read on his face was annoyance, not a single sign of regret. “Whatever you are, you’re the hottest one here. Let’s get back on the dance floor, show these garbage people what a higher class of person looks like.”

They looked silly and weak and foolish and none of that was happening today. Stevonnie felt all Steven, standing tall and looking down at Kevin from above. The bad feelings were still there, but that was okay. They were safely tucked away, so everything on their face was bemusement. “I’m not interested. Leave.”

“Yeah, I can definitely see the dude in you now. Listen, man, I-”

Wrong _ again _ ! He didn’t even _ ask! _ He didn’t even _ care! _ Their hands lashed out, slamming against his chest and knocking him back a few steps. It was barely anything, just a shove, but the guilt was enough to make Stevonnie stumble back. They were flickering. Connie was fading somewhere, still drowning in panic and despair. Steven was coming further forward, anger fading away into awful guilt and shame for daring to hit, for _ wanting _ to hit. And then the knowledge that they _ knew _. Steven had felt Connie’s anxiety and she had felt his guilt and they both knew exactly who it had come from.

They fell apart on the dance floor, and their first words were insults.

“You’re a coward!” he hissed.

“So are you!” she shouted. “At least I’m not an emotional trainwreck!”

“Oh yeah? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one dying for attention! At least I know how to enjoy it when I get it!”

Everyone was staring. Kevin was backing away from the magic mess on the floor. Like roaches when the lights flicked on, Steven and Connie scrambled away from the attention, the burning lights, out into the dark beach. She pulled ahead, running and panting as everything hurt. Tears burned her eyes and all she wanted was to flee, to find somewhere to sulk alone and never look at him again, but curiosity froze her legs, made her turn around.

Even she could see the fear in his eyes, even with the clarity of being Stevonnie ripped away. She swallowed, wiped her eyes before the tears fell, and choked out, “We didn’t even hurt him and you still felt bad.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t feel-”

“Shut up, that’s a good thing.” She laughed once, then it bubbled out of her. Hysterical and giddy and miserable all at once. “You’re the most empathetic person I’ve ever met. Seriously. You really, really care about other people. You really don’t want to hurt them. You… What the hell happened to you?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered. He stared down at his hands. “I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know how I fused with you. I don’t know why I’m feeling all these things. I don’t know how you’re making me talk about this. I’m not supposed to talk about this!”

“Who said?” She scowled.

“Pearl,” he began. “But she’s not the same when-”

“It’s _ always _ Pearl!” Connie snapped. “Maybe she’s not being a great guardian to you, Steven! It’s not healthy to tell someone who has real feelings and cares and seems to be a really sweet guy deep inside that he’s supposed to bottle those up so he can pretend to be a prince.”

“I’m not pretending! I _ am _a prince!” he shouted.

“Of _ what _ ?” Connie kicked up a spray of sand. “This? It’s not yours! This belongs to Delmarva! To the people of the United States of America! To _ Earth _! Is there something else you’re supposed to own? Do people live there? I don’t think any of it belongs to you!”

“You wanted to run away!” he shouted, ignoring everything she said. “So why are you here? Every moment, everything we did! I could feel you being scared. You lie to your parents because you’re afraid of them knowing the truth. You hide your bad feelings because you’re afraid people will know you have them. You’re afraid of everything and everyone!”

It was hard. It was so very, very hard. She was so afraid of being wrong, that she’d be met with a sneer or a growl of a cruel little laugh as she strolled off down the beach. But she had _ felt _it, and she had to try. She had to take the chance, just once, to keep the closest thing she had to a friend. She let the pain show on her face, let her breath come in a choked off sob and asked, “Is that really all you felt from me?”

Of all the responses she thought she’d get, a hug wasn’t it. She was wrapped up in warmth, her face pressed to his neck as soothing words rolled out of him. Connie never would have guessed he could be this gentle. “Of course not, no. I was just mad. I shouldn’t have said that. I was scared too. I… I’m sorry. Please, Connie, it’s okay. You don’t have to cry.”

She gasped shakily. “We’re friends now. We can’t talk to each other like this anymore.”

Steven rocked her slowly. “No. We’re not going to do that anymore.”

“No more going after weaknesses?” she said, fingers fisting tight in his shirt. She whimpered, clinging him tighter. “Just teasing? Please, Steven. I can’t take it anymore.”

“Me neither.” He squeezed her tighter, being very careful with the strength he knew he had. “I can’t be alone anymore, Connie. It hurts. It really, really hurts.”

They sank down into the sand, clinging to each other tight, and they were suddenly themself once again, cool night air whipping through their endless hair. They closed their eyes and laid down, fumbling for the feelings from before. They reached for confidence, bravado, the euphoria and heady feel of craving attention, but it wasn’t there at the moment. So much of it was whipped away, cold and quiet and bare under the cloudless sky.

But there was honesty. Vulnerability. Friendship.

“Is this okay?” they said to themself. They nodded. “This is good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Hadithi here. I wrote most of this on my own, with lots of editing help from Echo. Alone Together is an amazing episode. Just... perfect. Probably one of the most perfect episodes of television ever made, in my opinion. It honestly feels crazy to write this at all, like writing my own ending to a Shakespearean play or something.
> 
> But it had to be a big chapter, because it's just so important. Here's the moment where they really switch over to being friends, albeit friends that banter and fight quite a bit, and the chapter where we prove that Steven is still Steven, even though he's covering it up.
> 
> It eases off a little for the next few chapters as they get settled being friends. So expect lots of flirting, teasing and romance for the next few. You know, until Full Disclosure happens.


	8. Book Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven and Connie read a book series together.
> 
> Covers Marble Madness and Open Book

Steven hadn’t really realized just how much time school took out of the normal teenager’s day. Connie went to school for forty hours a week, like it was a job, and then came home and did homework and a dozen other extracurriculars that would help her get into college. That left her with little time to catch a bus over to Beach City, so Steven found a lot of their time together ended up being over the phone.

“Okay, it’s called the Spirit Morph saga, because - no, you’ll find out. I shouldn't tell you anything,” Connie babbled eagerly on the phone. “How fast do you read? You could text me your reactions, or call if it’s not during school. You could text me _ while _I’m in school, though.”

He giggled, sprawled out on his couch. “What if I just call you after I read each book?”

“Fine,” She groaned. “As long as you read them, I’ll take anything. The way the journey of Lisa and Archimicarus slowly evolved into this beautiful epic story is just so-”

There was a sonic boom outside. That was the other problem. Gem stuff had been creeping into his life more and more (and it was a bit of an open secret that this was probably because of the Lapis fiasco), and all too often their conversations were cut short. Steven swore. “Sorry, Connie, I’ll call you later. There’s some stuff I’ve got to take care of on the beach.”

* * *

“Okay, so what’d you think of the first one?” Connie said, and he could practically hear her vibrating through the phone. “Isn’t is the best? The way Lisa talks her way out of problems… she’s so smart. She’s just so awesome and-”

“Hold on,” Steven said, hoping she couldn’t hear the grin of his face. “_First _ one?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. He could hear horror dawning in her voice. “You’re reading them in _ order_, right?”

“There’s an order?” he whispered.

“Steven, you’re eighteen you illiterate fu-” she began, cutting herself off as he burst into giggles. “Oh, ha ha Steven. Very funny. Come on! Quit teasing! Tell me what you thought of the first book.”

“Steven!” Garnet shouted. “We have to go. There’s more of them.”

He groaned. “Sorry, Connie. I’ll tell you later, I swear.”

* * *

“So, a familiar is _ you _ but not you. It’s like your soul, or maybe your conscience? Maybe both of those, all wrapped up in one,” Steven said as he loungued on his bed, phone pressed to his ear. He hadn’t really tackled a fantasy series like this before, and all the magic was a little hard to wrap his head around.

“Yeah, I’d say so. It gets more complex as the series goes on,” Connie agreed. She liked to to that too, not telling him things about the series. She had a very serious spoiler policy about her favorite books. “But what did you think of the scene on the mountain? With Roland?”

Steven whined, tears pricking at his eyes as he remembered. “It was so sad! When she figured out that he was going to cut away Roland’s familiar I gasped. Pearl came running into the room to ask if I was hurt.”

She giggled. “Did you cry?”

“No,” he lied.

“You did! You cried! I cried, so you definitely cried.”

“Steven!” Garnet called.

Connie’s miserable sigh tugged at his heart. She murmured, “More marbles? What’s going on over there?”

“I don’t know,” he growled, trying his best to sound like Earth’s righteous protector, “but I’m gonna finish it.”

“Steven, wait,” she said. She didn’t sound impressed by his intimidating voice, just concerned, and he paused before hanging up. “You know who you are. Don’t forget. Be kind.”

He hung up without saying goodbye.

But he was kind when he met Peridot. He was Steven.

* * *

"I bought the book with maps, Steven!" Connie cried, holding up the book with all the nerd rage she could muster. "Do you know how much this was? Forty dollars! I spent so much money to pre-order and get the fanciest edition and here I am, suffering as it turned into a stupid romance and threw all the anti-authoritarian themes right out the window! Can you believe it?"

"I liked the ending," Steven said with a grin, fiddling with the fold out map. "It was cute. Two partners denied their love by fate's design finding a way to deny reality in turn? How do you not love that?"

"You don’t even understand how the Crimson Chains of Agenon work," she growled, flopping back onto the couch with arms crossed. "Forgive me if I don't think much of your opinion. It was schmaltzy schlock!"

He giggled. "Schmaltzy. Yeah, I guess that's the way to put it. But isn't it nice to just have a happy ending? Silly romance? Everything works out and no one has to die?"

She shrugged. "If no one dies, what are the stakes?"

"Losing true love?" he suggested with a bit of a romantic smile.

"Boooo!" she jeered. "Lame! Schmaltz!"

He laughed harder. Connie being the opposite of a romantic wasn’t exactly unexpected, but he never would have thought she’d react that strongly to the romantic ending. Then again, there _ had _been a lot of cheese. The wedding cake had been especially egregious (and he had loved every second of it, but he didn’t dare start her ranting about that). "So how would you have ended it? Archimicarus actually dies in the Fallen Mountains and Lisa soldiers on alone?" 

She looked down at her book, folding up the maps carefully before tossing it on the couch in disgust. "What's it matter? The only ending I want right now is my foot ending up in the author's butt."

"Well, we could write a new ending." He looked over at his mother’s room. Surely he could take a human in without any trouble. He was half human and nothing had ever hurt him while he was inside it.

Connie scowled. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again - you're never getting my Archive account name."

"No!" He laughed. "I've got a... huh. What would you call it? You're a nerd so... holodeck?"

Connie went still. She suddenly leaned forward, hands squishing his cheeks as she forced him to make very direct eye contact. "I need you to repeat that, and use more words so that I'm sure you're saying what I think you're saying."

"My room in the temple. It's pink and full of clouds that turn into whatever I want them to." He grinned. "It's kinda hard to work, but as long as I make orders carefully--"

Connie cut him off with a shriek. "You have a working magical make-whatever-you-want room and I'm hearing about it for the first time _ now? _"

"For someone who doesn't care about my opinion, you sure do suddenly seem to care a lot about what I'm saying," he teased.

"Take me to the holodeck!" she demanded. She bounced up from the couch, looking at Rose’s Room (hmm, she had been paying close attention to him, hadn’t she?). Her eyes flicked back to his belly, putting the pieces together from watching the gems come and go from their rooms. "Come on. What do you want from me? I need the holodeck."

He grinned. "Say you care about what I think and I'll let you in." 

"Fine. Your opinion matters and I care about it, and I would like to argue for hours about the dumb ending you like but then I'd have to think about it and just get more mad." She huffed and crossed her arms, her face working itself into a pout. "Now, please, can we go into your magic room?"

He smirked. "Now say you _ love _me."

"I'll kiss you for an extra dose of your healing spit," she retorted.

That made Steven pause. H suddenly reminded Connie taking bites out of his sandwich, sneaking drinks off his water bottle and juice box, even sharing a spoon with him on occasion. He burst into giggles. "Wait, is that why you keep stealing my food?"

"Obviously I’m not letting magic spit go to waste," she confirmed. "Come on! I was nice. let me into the holodeck."

He dramatically put a hand on his chin, letting her sit and fidget for another thirty seconds as he hummed, and just as she opened her mouth to complain, he stepped towards the temple door. Pink light shone from it as the door shifted into an open arch with endless pink clouds beyond, filling him with that strange mix of missing someone he never met, and excitement for his elaborate place place. Connie squealed and sprinted inside.

"You know, I could've locked you in here and had some peace and quiet for once," he teased as he followed her in. The door vanished behind them, as it always did, leaving them in an endless field of pink clouds.

"How does it work?" she pressed, completely ignoring him. She got on her knees, trying to sweep clouds aside, then bounced back up and she spun and searched the room in wide eyed wonder. "Is there a console? Command phrase? Room, make me a sword!"

He laughed. "It's my room. It does what I want."

"Authorize me as a user!"

"I inherited the room. It doesn't even work perfectly when I use it. And... Hmm, do I keep unlimited power over this room you're trapped in, or share?" He looked as cartoonishly thoughtful as he could. "What a conundrum."

Connie stiffened suddenly, looking back towards the door where the door had been. Nothing now, just clouds and empty space. Her eyes shifted back to him with a very nervous giggle. "So, unlimited power... what does that mean, exactly? The room can't touch me or anything, can it?"

"It can touch you, but it can’t really hurt you." He shrugged. "Even if you make something, it's all clouds. If you make a cloud sword it'll cut a cloud monster, but try to stab yourself or me, and... Poof. Clouds again. Same thing if you try to make something and leave the room with it."

She relaxed a little. "So you can do psychological harm, but not physical. Good. Safe. I think you’ve moved past the jerk stage enough that I don’t have to worry about you messing with my head too bad."

"It _ can _restrain you though," Steven amended. He saw Connie start to smirk and flushed, saying quickly, "Sparring partners! I've summoned sparring partners! Get your mind out of the gutter, Ms. Maheswaran."

She thought very hard about teasing further, but she heard something in that last line she liked. Connie grinned and bounced up beside him, taking her warm, rough hand in his much softer one. "Sparring, huh? Remember how we didn't get to test our powers as Stevonnie?"

He beamed. "Yes! Sometimes, when you fuse, you get new powers. I don't know if Stevonnie had any, but we could find out. I could show you what summoning my stuff feels like. We could fight a dragon or something without risk of getting hurt!"

"Or we could fight that stupid lava golem from _ Destiny's End, _ except we could use actual weapons to fight and not kill it by kissing in front of it like dumbasses!" She beamed back. "So, we just dance, right?"

"Garnet sometimes kisses to fuse." He taunted, "If you're still open to that."

She grinned, her chest pressing to his, her face inches from his. "More magic spit? Why not?"

He flushed as he moved back and tried to steady his racing heart. "Ha. You're hilarious. Come on."

Steven twirled her slowly. He thought about telling her that fusion was hard, and it might not happen every time. He thought about explaining that they had to be in sync, that it took a deep relationship and a lot of understanding and being on the same wavelength. But, soon enough, the explanation was irrelevant. It wasn't just his mind anymore. It was theirs.

And they had missed this. Steven knew power, lived with it every moment, but Connie relished the feel of it. And even if Steven knew his own power, this--Stevonnie--was more. Bigger in every direction. More beautiful, more handsome, more charismatic, but those they’d had the chance to explore before.They’d felt some of their strength in the first moments running on the beach. Now they had time to really test it out.

Steven knew how the room worked, and Connie knew what she wanted to make. Stevonnie spoke to the cloud banks. “Room, make twenty of the Knights of the Crimson Cloth. Five crossbow support, the rest various weapons. Make them as close to human durability as you can. And give me a sword.”

A circle of knights burst into being from the clouds around them, blood-red visors rendering them faceless beneath amber cloaks. In the same moment, a sword formed in their right hand. Connie recognized her own design for Lisa’s iron sword in it, while Steven appreciated the weight. Stevonnie didn’t know how to use it, but they would figure it out.

The knights charged, and Stevonnie leapt. Their shield formed in the path of two crossbow bolts, knocking the bolts back into the cloudy ground. They needed to stay up a little longer, and they found that they did. The knowledge that they could float passed from Steven to Connie, and Stevonnie used the extra moment to toss their shield towards a crossbow support, cutting it in half. They kicked in the air, moving themselves towards the newly created space. Two knights approached with flail and sword, and they were dispatched by a swift kick and a wild, untrained slash respectively, the latter cutting right through their opponent’s blade.

Like a whirlwind Stevonnie danced through the fight, leaping from ranger to ranger, removing the possibility of a stray bolt striking them unannounced, taking a few of the melee combatants at each landing. Their swordsmanship was lacking, but bolstered by strength that surprised even Steven within them, their skill barely mattered. The knights were simply no match.

The last three were tossed into the air with a wild shield bash and slashed with three quick blows before they could land. Stevonnie panted, adrenaline spiking through them as the clouds settled back around their feet.

“That was incredible,” they gasped, a hand to their face. “We’re _ amazing. _” And whether it was true or not, Stevonnie believed it to their core. Indomitable, unbreakable, irresistible. In battle, in social graces, it didn’t matter. They were unconquerable.

Stevonnie grinned into the clouds. “Room. That wasn’t enough. Give us a challenge! A real threat!”

And the room summoned Peridot.

Half of Stevonnie didn’t recognize the new gem as anything other than a random gem, but the other half was filled with dread. “No. No, that’s not what I meant.”

Stevonnie shook their head, frowning but looking determines nevertheless. “Not what you meant? Steven, who is that? It doesn’t matter, we can fight it!”

“No, not us! You’re not supposed to face this!” Their faces twisted up with fear and anger, cringing away as Peridot loomed ever closer. They screamed, “I can do it alone!”

Stevonnie burst apart, Steven and Connie grunting as they hit the ground. “Disappear!” Steven pointed to the green gem leveling a bolt of green energy at him, and without a word she dissolved back into smoke.

“Steven, what was that? Peridot? Who’s Peridot?” Connie pushed herself to her feet. “Is this what you’ve been fighting? Another gem?”

“You’re not involved!” Steven shouted back. “You don’t have to know! Just… stay away!”

“I’m not going to--” But Connie’s words struck stone, massive walls of it that rose around her. Steven seemed to fly away, the room answering his wish by keeping her far from him. Long shadows fell over her.

She looked around in panic. Walls. And those walls formed passages that twisted and turned away from a central point, the point she now stood in. It took a moment to recognize it. “A maze?” She turned. “But… why a maze?”

She decided it didn’t matter. The iron sword lay at her feet. She picked it up again just in case and started towards an entrance. The room could have put her in a box where she could never escape. If she was in a maze, it had to be solvable. So she would solve it and find Steven again.

And outside, Steven’s hands scrambled at the rock. “No, no! Don’t hurt her! I know I said I wanted her to go away but not like this!” He pulled back, looking angrily around, but the stone was the only thing there. He could see a gap, an entrance or exit to the maze, but Connie was nowhere in sight. “Room! I want her here even if I say I want her gone! Don’t take me literally!”

He growled as nothing changed, the walls remaining steadfast before him. Steven slammed against the stone with a scream and it cracked, only for Connie’s voice to come soft and confused behind him, “You want her here, but you don’t. You want to fight with her, but you have to protect her. You want someone to talk to about Peridot, but you can’t be a burden. I don’t understand, Steven. Further clarification is necessary.”

When he turned to face her, she looked mostly like his Connie. She didn’t wear the glasses, though, not even tucked into her shirt for convenience. Her face was too calculating, too intent on his own, lacking any of the humanity and kindness he had come to expect. He appreciated that, at least. If she had acted and looked like her, it would have been too upsetting. 

He shoved his hand at her, exhausted and struggling to close himself off. “Poof. And poof the walls too.”

“I cannot take you literally any longer.” The Cloud Connie said, stepping closer. “I’m analyzing your thoughts to figure out your actual request.”

He glared. “Stay out of my head!”

“I can only work inside your head. How else could I accurately summon?” The Cloud Connie frowned, then grinned. “Ah, I understand. Restraints. A rescuer. A climatic battle. That’s your true feelings.”

“It’s… what?” he spluttered. Glowing red shackles lashed his wrists and ankles, somehow so impossibly heavy he was dragged to his knees. His clothes had been exchanged for something odd, torn rags, and the more he struggled to free himself the more the chains crept and tightened, until he was wrapped up tight and laying in clouds. And even in his distress, this felt familiar.

His eyes widened as he remembered. “_Destiny’s End_, when Archimicarus gets captured! The magic chains, his human outfit, the…” He scowled as the joy of figuring out the puzzle faded, replaced with frustration. “Why are you making me cosplay?”

She was dressed in a midnight blue cape, a rapier in hand, dressed as Countess Coultana from the series. Idly, he thought that Connie would be disappointed with the villain swap for the final battle, but he had always wanted to see the Countess and Lisa duel. She put her foot on his chest and leaned over him. “Because this is what you really want.”

He growled, and just then Connie came sliding through the exit of the maze, sword in hand. She froze, sword slowly lowering from a battle stance as she stared at a clone of herself standing over him. Tied up. Cosplaying. Her cheeks started to darken as she cleared her throat. “Um, should I go or…?”

He flushed and shouted, “I didn’t want this! The room is going haywire!”

“Right!” she said, flustered as she brought her sword back up.

“Do you think about _ anything else _?”

Her voice cracked. “It was a reasonable assumption!”

She squeaked as her clothes changed as suddenly as his, a crimson cape and fancy, witchy clothes. The sword in her hand shone gold, leaving a sparkling trail behind it, and her eyes went wide with wonder as she solved the puzzle straight away. “I’m Lisa! Oh my god, I’m _ Destiny’s End _ Lisa! Oh! You’re Archimicarus! Is evil me the Countess?”

“Connie, you have to get out!” he shouted. She couldn’t take this seriously. She didn’t know the stakes. She was just a human. Those thoughts sounded so distinctly Pearl, and he tried to shake them away. There was a deeper worry to deal with: “It’s never done anything like this. What if it hurts you?”

She leveled her sword at her clone, her face as serious as he would expect from a situation like this. She was so fierce, so steady. He had seen the same expression on the Crystal Gems countless times before. “I won’t leave you alone with her. If she’s got you tied up, who knows what she’ll try to do. If she can hurt me, she can hurt you.”

Cloud Connie grinned. “See? Isn’t this better? It’s just what you wanted.”

“No!” he cried, struggling again.

The two charged forward, swords clashing in the room. It was so much less cinematic than Steven imagined, so much less graceful than Pearl. They shoved and shouted and slashed, his Connie bashing with the sword in wide, well-aimed arcs while the Cloud brought hers up in noisy, ringing clashes.

“She isn’t bad at this, huh?” Cloud Connie looked back at him, giving his Connie the opportunity to slice her clean in two. She poofed, and Connie let out a whoop of joy before the clone reappeared, calm and undamaged as ever.

Connie snarled, leaping forward with a flurry of blows. Lisa’s sword was broad, but Connie stabbed with it like she was holding the rapier her clone weilded, trading her tactics in hopes of an advantage. Cloud Connie seemed to struggle with that more, her rapier less of a block as she stumbled back.

“It’s such a relief for someone else to do the fighting, right?” She poofed again, sword run clean through her belly, but this time she reappeared beside him. The clone grabbed Steven’s hair, holding his head up at an uncomfortable, near painful angle. “But I could always make her leave, if that’s really want you want.”

Connie had been advancing, ready for another clash, but more chains lashed up. She was wrapped up to her waist. She screamed his name as her hands tried to rip them off, screamed wordlessly as she was dragged to the ground, dragged back towards the maze. Her hands clawed at the clouds, looking for something to grab, but if the room could keep him captive, Connie didn’t stand a chance.

Panic burned up his throat and belly, guilt twisting alongside it. It was his fault she would be trapped there. His fault if the room did her harm. He didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to be exposed, but there was no other option. Tears burned his eyes as he cried, “I want her here! I want her to fight with me! I don’t want to be alone anymore!”

“That’s better.”

The tension vanished in a puff of smoke with Cloud Connie. And then away went the manacles, the clothes, the walls, until the two of them were alone once more in the endless expanse of pink. Steven laid on the floor, staring over to where Connie lay, sure she was about to beg for an exit, to scream that she never wanted to see him again.

“What was that?’ Connie groaned, pushing herself up. “I thought you controlled this thing.”

“So did I,” he muttered. “Something went wrong. I’m sorry.”

She crawled over to him, sitting beside him, and he gawked as he realized she was trying not to smile. _ Now? _ She was going to tease him _ now _ of all times? Apparently, because she ruffled his hair and said, “Something, like, say, trying to get me to leave when your magic room knows you love me?”

He blushed. “I want a fighting partner.”

“Mmm, still _ really _ want me around, though.” She grinned and giggled. “Because you’re in _ loooooove _ with a pathetic, lowly human. The prince is in love with his pet, how uncouth.”

“Connie,” he whined, unsure if he was happy she was sticking around or embarrassed about his newly exposed secret.

Connie slowly leaned over him, making his heart pound again as her hands came down on either side of his shoulders, her face shining just slightly with sweat from the fight. She smirked as she let her nose touch his. “If you wanted me to be mean to you, you only ever had to ask. You know I’d do anything for the chance to beat you up.”

Steven thought about kissing her, trying to ease the worry with her being close, lose himself in that dizzying feel he’d gotten to experience just a couple times before, but he could feel the worry still settled in his chest, making his heart ache. “Quit teasing,” her whispered. “I was really worried about you.”

Her expression softened. “Me too. I heard you shouting and you were all tied up and… and who’s Peridot? It felt like she really scared you.”

His hand covered Connie’s. “You know I said there was a lot of stuff in the universe? Bad stuff?” Steven waited for her to nod, then said, “Peridot’s the beginning. We got noticed. And… and I’m really scared, Connie.”

She swallowed. “Sounds scary. Let’s talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time:  
_Steven 4:01 PM: Peridot is here and she’s not alone. We can’t take down their ship. Beach City is evacuating._  
_You 4:02 PM: I’ll come as fast as I can._  
_Steven 4:02 PM: DO NOT COME HERE_  
_Steven 4:06 PM: I know what I said, Connie. I want you here too. But you can’t. It’s too much. Evacuate with everyone else._  
_Steven 4:07 PM: Stay safe. <3_
> 
> Connie looked down at her phone one more time before she locked it and stowed it away. If the city was evacuating then the busses would be headed out of town.
> 
> She laced her shoes tight and ran towards the beach.


	9. Call to Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Return through Full Disclosure
> 
> Things get real.
> 
> Art from the wonderful! [Suf-fering on Tumblr!](suf-fering.tumblr.com)

Connie thought the day was going to be uneventful. She had some homework to do, she had to clean her room, and she was going to go for a run after dinner before looking into college applications. Nothing to write home about. She’d been trying to reach Steven with texts, but he wasn’t responding at all. Which meant he was probably either on a mission outside of cell tower range or just felt like being standoffish today. It wouldn’t be the first time her high and mighty prince had decided not to answer on a whim, even if he’d been better about it since the incident in Rose’s room.

But her day was interrupted when he finally got back to her, and any plans she had fell away.

_ Steven 3:56 PM: There’s a ship overhead. _

She stared at her phone. It was odd how easily she detached from herself. Her mouth drying up, her heart suddenly thundering in her chest, it all felt like it was happening to someone else. The phone in her hand seemed so far away. She couldn’t even respond at first.

_ Steven 4:01 PM: Peridot is here and she’s not alone. We can’t take down their ship. Beach City is evacuating. _

All at once she came back to herself, fumbling with her phone in her haste to reply back.

_ You 4:02 PM: I’ll come as fast as I can. _

The response was nearly instantaneous.

_ Steven 4:02 PM: DO NOT COME HERE _

A thousand retorts swirled in her head. Should she press when he was so serious? Insist that she stay by his side, that even untrained she wanted to be there just like he wanted her there? Could she let herself obey?

She sunk onto her bed, typing half a reply over and over, never satisfied, until finally he followed up without waiting for her to answer.

_ Steven 4:06 PM: I know what I said, Connie. I want you here too. But you can’t. It’s too much and it’s not safe for you. Evacuate with everyone else. _

_ Steven 4:07 PM: Stay safe. <3 _

She looked down at her phone one more time, then locked it and stowed it away. If the city was evacuating, then the busses would be headed out of town.

She had no intention of trying to catch one.

Because if Steven was so worried that he was willing to send her away, even after their last heart-to-heart, even knowing how much she wanted to be there... then he might actually be in danger.

And if there was even a slim chance that she could make a difference by being there, then how could she run away?

She laced her shoes tight and ran towards the beach.

* * *

Connie lived about ten miles from the beach. Normally this wasn’t a problem: there was a bus stop nearby and her parents didn’t care if she went there as long as she kept her phone on. Even if she wasn’t afforded the freedom of her own car yet, she still had options.

But today every route was closed off. The highway away from the beach was packed bumper to bumper, and the road there was completely deserted. Even if she was desperate enough to hitchhike, there weren’t options. Her parents were both working, and there wasn’t a chance that they’d drive her into an evacuation zone even if they weren’t.

All of this left Connie with only one option. So she ran.

The highway east was abandoned, but it still made for an easy route. Her instincts screamed to sprint, but she knew she’d never make it. She had to keep a steady pace. She wasn’t a fantastic runner. Her chest burned and legs ached, but she kept going.

Halfway there the impossibility of it occurred to her. She should have needed rest. She should have needed to slow down. Adrenaline and drive should only go so far for an inexperienced runner. But Steven needed her more than she needed to think about this. She quietly added it to the list and ran on.

She’d made it most of the way, ignoring everything but the need to get there, when she saw it. She crested a hill and the ocean unfurled on the horizon. And far above, floating ominously in the evening sky, a gleaming green ship shaped like a hand approached the beach and vanished from sight beneath the lighthouse.

She couldn’t keep herself from sprinting after that.

The sky was a dark foreboding green as she reached the beach, casting everything in an eerie light. Waves ran at unnatural angles from the shore, and she felt wind picking up as she ran, blowing sand into her eyes and her mouth, making her choke.

A flash of light around the hill gave her an instant of warning before the earth shook beneath her. An explosion rocked the hill, sending rock tumbling down and Connie falling mid-stride. She gasped and struggled back to her feet, forcing herself to run again.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the realization that she was running into the vicinity of an explosion occurred and she had to wonder if Steven had been right to send her away. And then she shoved it down, because she’d already run this far. She wasn’t going to give up now.

And if Steven wanted her safe, surely he would understand that she wanted the same for him.

Another explosion shook the ground, but this time she saw the flash and she was ready. She raced around a rock face and immediately dove back. The image she’d seen was imprinted in her brain. They were right there, the hand ship pointing its index like a gun pointed at the head of the planet. The Crystal Gems were scattered. Dust from the explosion still hung in the air. And three gems stood across from them. Peridot, cold and staring. Lapis, trapped and panicking at the sight of them. And an imposing third gem that she had never seen before.

Connie trembled, heart racing as she peeked again. She picked Steven out of the figures stumbling to their feet. He was completely on the other side of the beach. What was she supposed to do? She realized with a rush of dread that she had no idea. She had no weapon, no power. She’d been so focused on being here for him that she hadn’t even considered what she’d do on her arrival.

She watched the Crystal Gems fight. The unknown gem demanded Rose Quartz be captured, and Garnet flew out to meet them. The clash between them made Connie’s ears ring, but the battle was over before she could blink. Something yellow and crackling stabbed into Garnet and the fusion fell back and burst. Connie choked back a cry, hand to her mouth. She knew what poofing was, knew that Garnet was alright as long as Ruby and Sapphire’s gems were okay, but seeing it happen was terrifying. And if Garnet was already down, then--

Steven leaped to the attack against the gem, shield bared, and was absolutely dismantled. His shield was effortlessly caught before a vicious headbutt sent him limp. Connie couldn’t help crying out that time, but she was saved from detection by Amethyst and Pearl doing the same. The battle went quickly, two more gems joining Ruby and Sapphire on the sand, and Steven was dropped as well, falling bonelessly to the ground with Lapis kneeling hopelessly beside him.

Connie scrambled, mind racing. They’d have to gather the gems up. If she was lucky and fast, maybe she could get Steven, drag him to safety while they were distracted. Lapis might remember and help her if she got close enough. She was trembling and her heart thundered in her ears, but she had to try. She couldn’t just watch the Earth’s protectors be swept off into space or killed in front of her. The huge gem knelt to pick up Amethyst and Connie made her move, sprinting across the sand.

Peridot saw her immediately and Connie braced for an attack, but she was beneath their concern. “It’s just a native. Prepare for transport.” Connie ran towards Steven, but before she was even halfway there a green bubble materialized from nowhere. The three gems, the fallen Crystal Gems, and Steven were all wrapped up and lifted into the air. The sphere phased silently into the hand ship, and Connie watched as the entire ship began to pull away, flying far, far into the night sky.

She watched the ship until it was a dot, just another point of light in a sea of stars.

* * *

Connie stared at the stars for at least an hour, until she lost sight of which dot was _ her _ dot, her only friend, captured to be…

Well, nothing good, surely.

She felt the tears streaming down her face, but she kept her eyes open. She had to keep watching just in case they returned, even for just a moment. But eventually, eyes burning and heart torn, she turned and headed into the beach house.

She pounded on the door of the temple, jumped on the warp pad, looked in every nook and cranny for anything special or magic or spacey. She didn’t find anything, but that didn’t stop her from looking. She couldn’t just give up.

When the house interior held no answers, she went back to the temple door. “Are you intelligent? Like the room?” Connie croaked, voice hoarse from running and crying for the past few hours. “Everyone’s gone. Can I come in? Please? Maybe there’s something in you that I could use to help them. I could look. I could try. Just open up.”

She stared at the gems adorning it, but there was no light or voice or any note that it cared about what she said or even heard her at all. She put her back to it and slumped down. “Of course not. I’m not a gem.” Her hands came up and she ground the heels of her palms against her eyes. “It doesn’t matter to you how much I want in or whether I could help them if you did. I don’t have the magic.”

Exhausted and defeated, she closed her eyes to rest.

It was still night when she opened them again, and she couldn’t be sure she’d slept. Her body still ached, so it hadn’t been long. She shuffled to her feet. The house was silent, but beyond and above that silence, she heard a low roar. She ran outside.

The ship was back. Still barely more than a dot, but it burned in the black sky, a growing point of fire falling towards her.

Falling very _ directly _ towards her.

She ran down the steps, stumbling and half falling onto the sand, fleeing from the oncoming fireball. She choked on air, kicking up sand. The ship was already halfway here, and she couldn’t be sure exactly where it would fall, only that whatever was beneath it would be flattened.

A growl to her left made her stumble. Lion ran up to her. “Lion! Lion, good boy, good good boy!” Connie forced herself onto his back and held tight to his mane. “Run!”

The wind tore at her hair as he galloped away far faster than she could have fled. He took her towards the deserted boardwalk. Only when they were clear did he turn back. They watched the ship fall until the roar become a deafening scream that made Connie cover her ears, just in time for it to hit the hill and break apart in a massive explosion.

Connie’s heart stopped for a moment. “Bubble. He’s got the bubble. Lion, we’ve gotta find him!” Lion didn’t need her word. He was already running back before she’d even said his name, hunting through the burning wreck with a purpose. Connie winced at the heat as they passed otherworldly green flames, but she kept her eyes open. Lion seemed not to need sight, though. He reached a point near the center and turned on the spot, sniffing at the air before unleashing a roar that peeled away rubble from a bright pink globe.

Connie was on her feet before she even saw him. “Steven!”

The bubble unfurled to release the four Crystal Gems in a huddle, and before he could speak she was upon him, tackling him in a hug. “Connie?!” Steven was too shocked to move. “I told you not to come!”

“I don’t care!” She crushed him tight. “Did you really think I would?”

“You’re not safe here. You shouldn’t be here.” But he couldn’t keep from squeezing her back.

“I’m here anyway.”

Rubble burst apart a dozen yards away and Connie found herself yanked behind Steven as his shield came back up.

“This isn’t over, Rose!” The massive gem she’d seen before clawed her way from the rubble, tossing it aside like styrofoam. She was battered and bruised, but she limped towards them. The gems raised weapons, ready to fight again. “You hide behind your fusion, but that’s all you have. If I was in a fusion, I’d…”

Metal shifted to the left, and Lapis crawled out, panting and looking around. Her wings unfurled and she flew, but not fast enough. The gem grabbed her from the air. “Lapis!”

“Leave me alone!” Lapis struggled in her grip.

“Fuse with me, Lapis. They trapped you here. Used you! Don’t you want revenge?” The gem forced Lapis to look at her. “We could have it together!”

Steven shouted to her. “You don’t have to do this!”

Lapis stared at him forlornly. Her eyes closed, and she held out a hand to her captor.

“Lapis, don’t!” Connie cried. “We can still help you!”

The bigger gem guided Lapis through a dance, twirling her like a doll while barely taking a step herself. But it was enough. She sneered at them before the two gems dissolved into light, a light that grew and developed into a towering form. Sea-green to match the fires that still burned around them, the fusion cackled and raised a hand, summoning a pillar of water. Connie put a hand on Steven’s, ready to fuse if that was the only way she could help, but it wasn’t necessary. The water locked around the fusion’s wrist. “What are you doing?” She screamed.

“I won’t be a prisoner again!” She shouted back at herself, Lapis’s voice coming through. “I’ll make you my prisoner first!”

More shackles of water rose, dragging the fusion into the water. It warped and twisted, but held together. “Let’s stay on this miserable planet together!” And the fusion disappeared beneath the waves, vanishing into the deep ocean.

For a moment the five of them sat there in shock, rubble crashing and burning around them as the wreckage settled. Then Connie asked, “Who was that gem?”

Steven was pulled from his shock and he looked back at her. He stood up and looked down at her. One eye was black and swollen, but the other was narrowed. “Connie. Come with me. We need to talk.” He looked at the other gems. “Alone.”

She stood up, her legs wobbling, and followed without a word.

* * *

They stood on top of the hill amid the burning metal, lit only by the fire. It cast long shadows on his face and made it impossible for Connie to even try to read him. 

“Why’d you come here?” Steven demanded suddenly. “I told you to go. I wanted you safe. What did you expect to do?”

Connie set her jaw. “I don’t know. We talked and you said you wanted a partner. You confided in me. I didn’t know what I could do, but I wanted to be here for you. When you and the gems got knocked out, I tried to reach you, but--”

He exploded. “You tried to fight them? _ Alone?! _”

“I tried to rescue you!” She shouted back. “I wasn’t going to fight! I just wanted to get you and run!”

“And then what?” He walked to her until his face was inches away. “Get blasted in the back by Peridot? Get beat to death by Jasper? What was your plan?”

“I didn’t have one!” She grit her teeth. “But I’d rather fight than just watch it happen. You told me you wanted a fighting partner. Here I am.”

He pulled back. “I didn’t…” Steven’s eyes closed, and he leaned against a piece of the rubble near them. “When I told you that, Peridot was just a face on a screen sending robots. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t _ real. _Now she’s here and she’s brought company.” He put a hand on his head. “The gem empire is big. I don’t even know how big. A million gems? A billion? And they hate us. And now they know we’re here.”

Connie’s blood went cold. “They had Lapis.”

“And Lapis told them,” he confirmed. “It doesn’t sound like she said everything. Us helping her, talking to her… it meant something. But they got enough to send Peridot looking, and after I talked to her they sent more. And this isn’t going to be the end. We downed one ship and three gems. But more are going to follow.”

She swallowed. “Then… it sounds like you need all the help you can get.”

“Really?” He glared at her. “Connie, you’re human. You’re weak. I know for a human you’re strong, but to gems you’re _ nothing. _Jasper would have crushed you without breaking stride. The robot was a training toy. The room just made us fight dummies. This is real, and if you fight with me you could really die.” Steven’s eyes softened. “I don’t want you to die, Connie.”

“And what do you think happens if you all lose?” She growled. “This isn’t your planet, Steven. I thought we covered this.”

“I don’t care about the planet right now! I care about you!”

“Then listen to me!” Frustrated, she slammed her fist into the rubble. The metal buckled under her blow.

Steven stared at it. “Connie?”

“Do you know how I got here, Steven?” She glared at him. “I ran. I ran ten miles today. That’s nearly half a marathon. People train for months to do that event. I’m not a runner, Steven, but I didn’t have to stop once.”

“You were worried. You’ll be sore tomorrow.” He frowned. “Adrenaline--”

“Adrenaline has limits!” She pulled her hand back, flexing her fingers. "But fine. That's not enough for you. I’ve got more. I started hearing a sound a few weeks ago near the ocean. I didn't understand at first, but I did some research. Whales use this thing called infrasound. It's supposed to be way below what humans can hear, and it travels for miles. And now I'm hearing it."

Steven stared out at the ocean. "That seems unlikely. You might be wrong."

"I can read a book from across my room like it was right in front of me. My eyes were healed before. Now they're perfect." She took the empty frames from her eyes and looked down at them. "In gym class we did a rope climb and I did it in one go before half the class was off the ground. I'm not… I know that's not impossible, Steven, but it's a pattern. And it all started with the glasses."

"You think that, what, that my spit is making you stronger?" 

"It’s making me better. Stronger, faster. My senses are improving. And I have evidence to prove it." Connie glared at him again. "So, Steven, you can tell me I'm not part of it, tell me to stay out of it, but it's too late. You _ made _me part of it. I’m not a gem, but the magic is rubbing off, and I’m going to keep close to make sure that keeps happening."

“And what if I stop?” They squared off against one another.

“Then you’d better be willing to kill me, lock me up, or go into hiding, Steven. Because you don’t control me.” She tried to smirk, but she could feel too much desperation and worry pouring out of her to manage it. “I’ll keep coming back. If you stop telling me what you’re doing I’ll just spend all my free time here. If you stop sharing food I’ll steal your leftovers. If you try to run I’ll just wait at the temple for you to get back. Or do you plan to move the whole temple just to avoid one human girl?”

Steven’s eyes searched her face. “Connie, you don’t know what you’re asking for. What you want to be part of.”

“You’re right. I don’t. So _ tell me, _Steven, because no matter what it is, I’m gonna be right here by you.” She broke her stance first, but it was to take his hand in hers, and he broke right with her. “You want a partner and I want it to be me. The Earth needs defending, and I’m right here offering to defend it with you. If it’s a war, then I’ll be a warrior. Whatever it takes to be here.” She offered a smile. “I know you want it too.”

His hands were soft in hers, gentle as he rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “I do want it,” he murmured. “I just don’t want you hurt.”

“Then help me get better. Help me learn. Share your sandwiches with me more.” She grinned.

Steven chuckled. “If it’s working this well, I should probably just start giving you glasses of spit.”

She couldn’t hold back a shudder. “Or we could just kiss a lot. Just for the magic.”

He almost smirked, but he couldn’t quite manage it either. “Maybe.” He let her hands go and hugged her. “Alright. Come on. Let’s go talk to Pearl.”

“Pearl?” She leaned into the hug. “Why Pearl?”

He pulled back and took her hand to lead her down. “Because Pearl is going to train you to fight.”

Connie beamed bright and ran ahead, dragging him behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time might take a bit. It's Sworn to the Sword, and it's going to be heavy:
> 
> She had to be there. If she was his knight, worthless as she was as a human in combat, maybe she could guide him. Help him. Make him into the ruler he was supposed to be. It wasn't her story, but maybe she could change it just enough. If she gave it her all, ran herself ragged, did everything Pearl demanded, maybe she could stay by his side. Maybe it would be okay. Her life wasn't as important as Steven's but-
> 
> "Stop," she whispered. "Stop doing this to yourself. Stop internalizing it. You're joining a cult, Connie. You have to keep your head."
> 
> But she had done her research. She knew the rules. If you came across a cult, you needed to leave. All the knowledge of the psychological tactics in the world couldn't save you from the way they ate at you, they way they wore you down and made you weak and pliant and small - just another cog in a terrible machine, while at the same time building you up. You are nothing, but part of everything. You are small, and part of something big.
> 
> "I matter," she hissed to herself, trying to make herself believe it. "I'm just as important as..."
> 
> The water in the shower ran cold, but Connie couldn't move.


	10. Welcome to the Fold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl teaches Connie to swordfight.

Connie didn’t hate Pearl. Hate was something Connie saved for petty cruelty, for hypocrisy, for villains of the worst kind, and there was nothing like that in Pearl. Not that she could see, anyway, but Connie didn’t even believe that Pearl was hiding something. In fact, Pearl might have been the most genuine person she had ever known. She was honest and steadfast in her beliefs, never holding back to spare feelings. Pearl knew what was true, what she wanted, and was direct in getting it.

Connie just wasn’t sure if what she wanted was a good thing.

Pearl sized her up in a very dehumanizing way, the gem circling her and eyeing her musculature for strengths and weaknesses. She had Connie walk along the boardwalk while she and Steven watched. She ordered her to run. She ordered her to pivot and roll and sprint. It was cold, but it wasn’t cruel. The fact that she had so many issues with humans but still agreed to train her already felt generous.

“There’s more to you than I thought,” Pearl admitted as Connie returned to her side. “You certainly aren’t as durable as a gem, but your speed is just as good as any quartz - better than many. You’re agile and flighty, which is rare in a combat gem. That could give you an advantage simply because most have never seen someone fight like that before.”

Steven was grinning at Connie, mouthing silently, _ She likes you _.

Connie smiled back. “Ma’am, I know that humans aren’t sturdy, but Steven can heal me. That’s got to make up for something. And, if I’m fast like you say, I can try to avoid getting hit altogether. But Earth is my home, and I don’t want to hide in a bunker or sit on the sidelines. Last time something came, I wasn’t prepared, but next time, I want to be.”

Pearl’s expression softened a little, and Connie felt a little bit of happiness from warming her up. “And why don’t you want to hide in a bunker? That seems to be the natural state for humans when gems meddle in their affairs.”

She looked at Steven, who nodded back at her. Honest communication, that’s what this was always about, wasn’t it? Then why was it so hard? Her fists bunched up behind her back. “I hated being helpless when the ship came down. I hate knowing there’s something out there that’s… that’s terrible and cruel. What kind of empire would trap someone in a mirror for thousands of years? And the things Steven has told me, the rules on Homeworld...It’s horrible.”

Connie took a deep breath. “It’s mostly for Earth, for humans, because we deserve our own planet. It’s our place, and no one should take that away, but… but I want to help gems too if I can. The universe should be better for everyone. I’ve always wanted to do something important. What could be more important than this?”

The pale gem’s eyes were wet, and she wiped at them with the tips of her fingers. Genuine emotion, real tears from a wobbly speech Connie had barely prepared for. She stared up at Pearl, trying not to let shock show as the gem spoke in a watery, shaky voice: “A lot of humans have been… have fought very admirably over the years, for all sorts of causes. I think you’ll fit in with them just fine. I’ll be happy to train you.”

And so the training began. Connie set a few ground rules, just to keep everything running smoothly. The first was that Pearl could never tell Connie’s parents about the swords. The second was that sword training had to work around her schedule, at regular intervals, so it wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. The third was that Steven needed to heal her as much as possible because she couldn’t bring wounds home to her parents.

Her first session, as expected, was all about stance and grip. She remembered being a novice at tennis when everything was all about the basics. From her more accurate fantasy novels, she remembered that this was how weapons lessons always went - getting the basics down as firmly as possible, so you never forgot them in the heat of battle.

“You will be Steven’s knight. In combat, it is your duty to protect him, to make sure he isn’t shattered. He is a Diamond and you are a…” Pearl stopped herself, a little blue flush coming to her cheeks. “Well, you’re a human. Your life is short. Insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but you can make a difference here. You can protect him.”

Connie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. What a charming speech about dying for a boy. Pearl instructed her to bow, and she did so with a giggling flourish, meeting Steven’s eyes as she bowed too low for it to be anything but silly. “My liege, did I put on a good show for you this evening?”

“Oh yes, my human,” Steven agreed. A short while ago it would have sounded insulting, not it just made her laugh. He held out his hand for her to kiss, and she did with a laugh, then quickly tugged him close.

She still wasn’t sure why her heart always seemed to start pounding when he pressed up against her. His alien eyes were a little scary, sure, the odd pupil shape and bright pink surreal, but it didn’t feel quite like fear. More like a rollercoaster. Anticipation. The feel of his heart beating against hers was a dizzying reminder of their shared humanity. Something like that, she supposed, because it couldn’t be a crush.

Kissing him would mess with Pearl, obviously, so even though her hands were barely sore, she fluttered her lashes and purred, “Oh, your highness, fix me up lest my parents notice my grievous wounds, and lock me in a tower forevermore.”

He blushed, all silly and cute. “Wh-what?”

She grinned. “Kiss me better, dummy. Magic spit. Faster healing muscles. Achey hands. Lay one on me.”

He quickly tapped his lips to hers, and she felt an odd little disappointment about that. It was a little heart fluttery and happy, but it wasn’t the same as the deep kisses she had gotten before. Maybe because she had wanted to tease Pearl so badly, and that meant he wasn’t willing to play along. That made sense. 

She tweaked his nose and pushed down that odd disappointment as strength poured back into her limbs. “Thanks, Steven. I’m all better.”

* * *

Pearl had her repeat things. Things about Steven’s life being more valuable than her own in combat, things about how she needed to focus all her effort on protecting Steven, no matter the danger to her person. That made sense to her. Steven was the heir to some kind of dangerous space empire. You had to make quick decisions in combat.

It felt weird to repeat it before every training, but she didn’t see much harm in it. She devoured Pearl’s lessons and did her best to keep up. She asked her mom for protein bars to help build muscle for “tennis” and chowed down on as many as wouldn’t be suspicious, though she still found her stomach growling more often than before.

But she was improving. She knew she was improving, because Pearl said, “You are incredibly talented.”

It slammed into her chest, leaving her breathless and shaking. Praise. Real praise. Connie so rarely got real praise, just short words from her mother. Occasionally an A on a particularly challenging essay or placing high in a competition would earn a “good job”. But here was Pearl, so genuinely and openly praising, sincere admiration in her eyes. Pearl was talented, a real rebel, and she saw something in her.

Connie yearned for it. She hung on Pearl’s every word. Her body throbbed but she could push through it. She was doing it. Her limbs trembled as new muscles worked to hold the sword in odd ways, as she pushed herself to spin and run and dodge, anything for the single dopamine hit of a compliment. She was getting strong. (She was losing weight.). She was getting faster. (She was losing tennis matches.) It was for the best. It was for Steven.

Wait. No. It was for Earth. Obviously it was for Earth. And for herself. That was so weird, but she caught herself thinking it more often. How weird it felt to think of doing things for Steven rather than for herself, for her planet. When he kissed her, she barely noticed. She took the brief peck on the lips that slid off her attention, touching him as little as possible as they did it.

He caught her wrist with a frown before she went home for the day, the two of them alone on the patio. “What’s up with you? You’re kissing me weird.”

“It’s professional,” she retorted. “It was fun to tease Pearl a couple of times but it’s just healing, Steven. We don’t need more than a peck to do it right.”

He grinned. “What about drinking all my spit to get more superpowers?”

“There’s more mature ways to do it.” She felt an odd sensation at the back of her mind. She couldn’t kiss him. He was a prince. She was his knight. They shouldn’t go around swapping spit like it was a joke, like she could ever be his equal. Dread poured into her stomach. That wasn’t right at all. “O-on second thought, kiss me.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“Kiss me,” she insisted. “No reason why not, right? We’re both people with no reason not to kiss, superpowered reasons to kiss. So, kiss me.”

He hesitated. “You usually kiss _ me _.”

“So it’s your turn then!” she said, surprised with the anger in her voice. “What, you don’t want to? I’m just your pet? I’m that far beneath you that you don’t even _ want _ to?”

He glared. “I never said any of that!”

“Then why don’t you kiss me, o mighty prince?” she snapped.

His mouth was on hers, chest rumbling with a frustrated growl as they clashed together. Her toes curled as her hands fisted in his shirt, trying out a growl of her own. His arms wrapped around her, clung to her, and she needed it more than anything. She had nipped him last time, her pounding heart too scary to continue when she had felt him move, felt him try to deepen the kiss. But this time she let it happen, encouraged it to happen as she tilted her own head back, gasped to let her lips part.

Steven took the invitation, his tongue brushing against hers. This was stupid. It was so stupid to cradle his cheek and let her tongue push back against his. She was shaking, and it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. But she had felt _ lesser _ for a minute and she was so scared, but he was here and he was warm and they had been Stevonnie, once, equal in every wa-

“I think that’s enough,” Pearl said coolly from the doorway.

The two burst apart, and Connie spoke first, voice trembling, “Sorry, ma’am. Needed more of a top off.”

“Yeah,” Steven said with a little laugh. “Uh, you’re working her hard, Pearl. She needs a lot of healing.”

Connie grabbed her bagged and rushed home, head swimming and heart pounding. Something was wrong with her. She was craving validation, affection, respect. Pearl was _ giving _ her respect, so why was she still searching for it? Why did she need it from Steven? Because he was more important than her? More valuable than her? She had to do research. This couldn’t continue.

* * *

“Steven is everything,” Connie agreed solemnly. “I am nothing.”

She had done her research, and everything was going to be fine. She was simply entering into a cultish way of thinking, and she had a slowly growing crush on Steven Universe, and both those things were fine. She was clever. She was strong. She wasn’t going to be taken in by pretty words and cute smiles.

“Excellent,” Pearl said, almost a hiss of delight as Connie slashed her way through another Holo Pearl. Euphoria made her head spin. Made her heart pound. She’d do anything for that praise. Anything reasonable, that was. Of course. She wouldn’t do anything bad. She’d just push herself, and wasn’t that a good thing?

Her sword clashed against a spear as she slid to the slide, then twisted to slash through the projection. Gone in an instant. Praise from Pearl. Pure happiness. She was so good, doing everything so right. She didn’t kiss Steven anymore. She shared a water bottle with him. Indirect kissing was less crush inducing than direct kissing. Something else that was she had solved, and she was sure Pearl was happy about that.

Not that she lived for Pearl’s happiness, or anything. Her calf screamed with overexertion as she propelled herself forward, narrowly missing the point of a spear as the sword struck true. She was just finally being acknowledged for being successful. She couldn’t fall behind. Earth was at stake. She was nothing and Steven was everything.

Steven watched her from the sidelines. He didn’t joke as much anymore. Didn’t look as happy. Fine. If he was going to withhold praise, why should she pay attention to him? Wasn’t he the one who said Pearl was wonderful once you got to know her? Was he jealous now? She was training to be his knight, couldn’t he be proud of her?

When she finished, Pearl showered her with affection. Wonderful. Talented. Masterful. Strong. Fast. Her hand patted her head and she leaned into it (like a pet) because it was so wonderful to be important and noticed and seen. She understood how Steven loved Pearl so much, when Pearl was so honest. Pearl must have been telling the truth, because she wasn’t the kind to lie and sweeten to save your feelings, and that made it all the more real.

Steven snagged her before they teleported home. “Are you okay? You’re kind of limping. I could-”

She shoved her water bottle in his face. “Sorry your weapon is damaged,” she muttered. “Fix me up. I’ll do better next time.”

He winced. “That’s not what I meant. I wanted to-”

“Well, it’s what I am!” she snapped, shoving the water bottle at him harder. “You’re going to claim your throne, aren’t you? Save the world? It’s my duty to protect you, my duty to keep you alive. You said it yourself. All you can summon is your stupid shield! You wanted a sword, and now you’ve got it. Are you going to fix me up?”

He stared at her and Pearl came up behind them with a sigh, putting another water bottle into Connie’s hands. “Here. He drank out of this one earlier. Steven, what is wrong with you? She can’t be an asset if she’s damaged.”

Connie chugged the stale water, and as the ache leached from her limbs exhaustion crept in. It felt like Steven’s magic could only do so much. Her head swam as they bickered, as they teleported home, and she stumbled into their bathroom. The sound of the water drowned out the arguing outside as she quickly stripped and stepped in, nearly falling as her foot barely cleared the edge of the tub.

She cleaned the sweat off of her in Steven's shower, standing with her hands braced on the wall and her feet braced against the sides of the tub. This was the only way to shower without falling today. Sitting down again would be too embarrassing. She had hated doing it last time and refused today. The dizziness would pass. Her body would wind down from the pounding heart and shaky limbs that always followed Pearl's training sessions. It was okay. It would get better.

She just needed to eat more. It was hard with all the health food at home, but she'd been adding in calories through peanut butter and crackers. It probably wasn't enough protein. She'd have to do more nutrition research.

Her body ached. Steven could probably heal that. The thought of asking him to seared at her pride, just imagining his smug expression as he dragged her into another tingling magical kiss, or worse - kissing her everywhere it hurt. Her heart started pounding again and she shook her head. No. She couldn't do that. She couldn't risk indulging the passing crush.

There was so much at stake. Diamonds? Aliens? An army of colonizers waiting at any moment to reclaim the earth, just hiding and hoping they had forgotten the planet existed. That they wouldn't ever find it again. She shook her head again. They would find it again. They would come. And if Steven had a moral compass, if Steven took the throne and pushed back and guided them, everyone on earth would be okay. Humanity would survive.

She had to be there. If she was his knight, worthless as she was as a human in combat, maybe she could guide him. Help him. Make him into the ruler he was supposed to be. It wasn't her story, but maybe she could change it just enough. If she gave it her all, ran herself ragged, did everything Pearl demanded, maybe she could stay by his side. Maybe it would be okay. Her life wasn't as important as Steven's but-

"Stop," she whispered. "Stop doing this to yourself. Stop internalizing it. You're joining a cult, Connie. You have to keep your head."

But she had done her research. She knew the rules. If you came across a cult, you needed to leave. All the knowledge of the psychological tactics in the world couldn't save you from the way they ate at you, the way they wore you down and made you weak and pliant and small - just another cog in a terrible machine, while at the same time building you up. You are nothing, but part of everything. You are small, and part of something big.

"I matter," she hissed to herself, trying to make herself believe it. "I'm just as important as..."

The water in the shower ran cold, but Connie couldn't move.

By the time she had dressed her shivering body and stumbled out of the bathroom, Steven had apparently finished his fight with Pearl. He was standing outside, and before she could say a word he had her wrapped up in his arms, rubbing her vigorously. “You’re freezing! A-and you feel smaller! Connie, what’s happening?”

She groaned, pushing at his chest. “Cold shower. Leave me alone.”

“She’s pushing you too hard!” Steven insisted.

He was so warm. She sunk into his arms and tilted her head up, catching his lips in a kiss. He was all stiff against her. Had she ever kissed him before? Had he always kissed her? Her hands cradled his cheeks as if she could suck the warmth and strength out of him. She gasped against his lips. “I don’t think it’s working anymore.”

“Connie,” he whispered, voice cracking as he pulled away. “You’re hurting yourself. We haven’t talked about anything fun in weeks. You just come over and train and-”

“I have to protect you.” She shook her head and cut him off. “There’s no time.”

“I’m supposed to protect you! You’re human! You have to stop training like this.”

This time she did manage to push away, stumbling into the kitchen. “I just need to eat more. Pearl! Come yell at Steven! He’s…” _ not accepting I’m beneath him _“Not listening to all the stuff you said!” She tugged open the fridge, grabbing her protein powder infused smoothie. She took a big swallow of the chalky mess, wishing her hand wouldn’t tremble so badly.

“Dr. Maheswaran?” She heard, and wheeled around to find Steven on her phone. “Connie’s feeling sick. We spent the day running around on the beach and I think she’s overworked? She’s cold and shaking.”

Her hand clenched around her thermos as she snarled, “Steven! You’re going to get me caught!”

He looked away from her. “Please come get her? I’m really worried.” His voice was so choked up all of a sudden. She just stared on in disbelief. What was the point of laying it on so thick? As he said goodbye and hung up, he wiped at his cheeks before leaning on the counter, staring up at her with red, swollen eyes.

Steven had really made himself cry. She couldn’t imagine why.

* * *

There was shouting inside the house when Connie came back the next day, and despite her aching legs she picked up the pace to jog up the stairs. She pushed through the door to find Steven and Pearl in the middle of a screaming match, Garnet and Amethyst sat on the couch, the shorter of the two cramming popcorn into her mouth as she looked on.

“You can’t keep doing this!” Steven shouted. “She’s human! You’re gonna kill her!”

“You have no idea what a human can do! You weren’t there for the war. You haven’t trained anyone!” Pearl snapped. “I have trained _ countless _ humans for combat, Steven. I know exactly what their bodies can take before breaking, and your healing powers-”

He cut her off, jabbing his finger at her. “Have limits! I didn’t know before but I can see it now! She’s tired! _ I’m _ tired!” He stabbed his own chest with his thumb. “I can only fix her up so much! And you’re saying all kinds of messed up stuff about-”

“Are you…” Connie asked quietly. All eyes turned to her and she swallowed. “Are you fighting about me?”

Pearl smiled, stepping to Connie’s side. Her hand fell to Connie’s shoulder, and the warmth of it immediately brought a smile to her face as well as her teacher looked down at her. They were fighting over her. They cared so much about what she was going to do they were _ fighting _ about it. That was a boost to her self-esteem. “See? Connie’s here, ready for more training. She’s the perfect student, Steven. I’ve never had a pupil so dedicated and learning so fast.”

“She’s going to get hurt!” Steven snapped.

“And, if she does, she’ll push through those weaknesses and come out stronger. Isn’t that how humans grow?” Pearl retorted. She turned back to Connie, drowning her in praise. “It really is remarkable. A gem can grow in skill, of course, but a gem can’t build muscle. You can. You get stronger, get better. By breaking yourself down you build yourself up. Every time you break, you get stronger.”

“Thank y-” Connie started to smile.

“No!” Steven shouted, fists clenched at his side, muting her happiness. “That’s not… I mean, it is but… not like that! When humans get better you...you struggle! You don’t suffer!”

Pearl frowned at him. “Would you stop your tantrum, Steven? Connie is loyal and dedicated. She follows instructions to the letter. She’d do anything to protect you and the Earth.”

‘Yeah! But she’s more than that! She’s not some stupid mindless quartz soldier or… or a…” There was a word on his lips for a second, lips curled in about to pop a ‘P’, and the tension in the room suddenly spiked unbearably high. He stopped himself though, finishing a little quieter, “Connie is brave. She’s really clever, which is, like… It’s not that she’s _ smart _. It’s that she’s creative with being smart. She’s really funny. She’s really loving.”

He swallowed, meeting her eyes. Why was everything so blurry? Why were her eyes stinging? Her arms crossed protectively across her chest as if that could stop the building emotion. Steven’s praise felt so much better than Pearl’s, but it was so unearned. He felt those things about her, loved those things about her, without the cruel demand of breaking her body down to nothing for him.

“You’re not afraid to tell me no when I mess up. You respect me enough to tell me when I’m being a jerk or stupid. You should tell me that stuff. I know you’re just a human but… but maybe that means you’re not mine?”

She took a step closer to him, hope firing up in her chest. “I don’t _ belong _ to you.”

“Steven,” Pearl warned. “Stop this right now. She’s just a-”

“Why is that so important?” Steven snapped. He stormed up to Pearl, then stopped himself before shouting, turning to Connie. “You’re not a gem. This planet it… it belongs to my mom, but it shouldn’t. That was the whole point of everything! Earth is supposed to be free. I’m not supposed to own you. You’re not a Diamond or some other important person. You’re a human. But being human means you’re not a part of the system.”

“Steven!” Pearl snapped. “You need-”

Steven pushed forward. “I don’t own you. I’m not really your king or prince or whatever, because you’re not a gem. You’re a human, and you’re choosing to be here. You shouldn’t do stuff just for me. You should do stuff because you think it’s important. You should fight for yourself, Connie, and that means not killing yourself over protecting me.”

She nodded, flinging herself into his arms. Her face buried against his chest with a quiet whimper, barely stopping the tears as he wrapped her up. _ Together _, like they had been as Stevonnie. That was so much better, so much nicer. And maybe she didn’t feel like she deserved it, but couldn’t she have things she didn’t deserve from time to time? Maybe just being human was deserving enough of someone who would give her praise and adoration without her needing to work herself to the bone.

“We’ll protect each other,” she said. “You can shield me too.”

“You can’t talk to her like that! You’re going to get yourself killed, Rose!” Pearl shouted, dragging him by the collar of his shirt away from Connie. There was a gasp from Garnet, a gasp from Amethyst, and Steven stared at her with wide eyes as her hand clamped over her mouth in shock.

She went to pull away, but Steven’s arms wrapped tight around her waist, and Connie suddenly felt very strongly that this was something she was not supposed to see. This was something that was not supposed to happen at all. But she was here, woozy from overwork and dragged into the magic business, so she awkwardly asked, “Did Rose think you were… you were just a pawn? She made you give up everything for her?”

“No,” Pearl said after a moment, pushing her face into Steven’s curls as she cradled him. “She made sure I knew I was so much more than just a pearl.”

Amethyst curled her knees to her chest and whispered, “More than an overcooked runt.”

“More than a mistake,” Garnet agreed.

Steven learned back, tears on his face and a crack in his voice, “Pearl, you can’t hurt her like they hurt you. I know you didn’t mean to, but-”

“You’re right.” She nodded quickly, wiping at her own eyes. “You’re very right, Steven. Rose never wanted anything like this. She wanted gems to be equals, to be free to make their own choices and live how they wanted.”

She looked at Connie and smiled weakly. She broke apart from Steven and gently took Connie’s hands. “She wanted the same for humans. She learned that from humans. I’ve been treating you in a way that… that I was treated for a very long time. In a way I treat myself. And that’s not the way people should treat people of any kind. I’m very sorry, Connie.”

Her gut instinct was to say that it was okay, but the rest of her held back. It wasn’t okay. She hurt. She was tired. She was sad. There were tears in her eyes still from Steven treating her so kindly and she still felt like she didn’t deserve it, and she had no idea how long that feeling would linger.

But she did understand. She had heard Lapis speak and listened carefully to gem conversations, and the world beyond her little rock seemed dark and painful. How hard was it to move on from that? How much of a struggle was it to know when something was okay, and when something was wrong? This was wrong, all of it was wrong, but it wasn’t an evil thing. It wasn’t cruel. It was just echoes, gravity ripples from events her ancestors had barely caught glimpses of.

Connie didn’t hate Pearl. Hate was saved for things that Pearl was not. But it wasn’t okay, either. She nodded and squeezed Pearl’s hands. There could be forgiving without forgetting, mistakes without malice. Things could still be better. She said, “I forgive you. And, if you can handle it, I still want to train.”

“We can train together,” Steven said, smiling as he looked between them, pure relief on his face. “But today, maybe, we can just hang out? The whole family?”

“I can go home,” Connie said, even as loneliness clawed at her. She stepped back from Pearl, looking to the door. “I need my rest anyway. I’m kinda shak-”

Steven’s hand snagged her wrist and he smiled. “Come on. I said the whole family. That includes my amazing friend, right?”

Pearl gave her head an affectionate pat. “Steven’s wonderful friend.”

And Connie nearly sobbed as she was finally handed praise without conditions.


	11. We Need to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Connie visits Steven and Greg, Steven realizes he's changing and has a talk about himself and his mother.

“Whaddaya think, schtu-ball? Space rock or prog rock?”

Steven nodded his head along to the beat, eyes closed and chin in hand. “Mmm… too fast for space. Prog for sure.”

“Good call.” Greg grinned and slid the vinyl off the phonograph, twirling it before sliding it into place in his collection. “What did you think of that one, Connie?”

Connie kept flushing every time he asked her opinion about a new kind of music. Finding out that she was somehow disallowed from listening to anything but classical music had lit a fire in Greg, and instead of the organizing they’d intended, they were instead introducing Connie to his music collection. She tried to come up with something. “Too fast for me. I can’t really follow the notes.”

Steven grinned. “Don’t try to follow it. Just feel it.” For the fifth time that night she looked at him like she’d never seen him before, and he looked away before it could get to him. “That’s what Dad would say, anyway.”

“Hey, let the lady have what she wants.” Greg thumbed through the unorganized records. “Here’s something slow and solid! Listen to this and tell me what you think.” He dropped the needle onto a new vinyl, and a slow, jammy tune started to play.

Connie caught herself tapping her foot, and neither of the Universe men missed it. Steven laughed. “There we go!” He started dancing to the rhythm. “Come on. Get into it!”

“Who _ are _ you?” Connie asked with a smile. “I don’t know a Steven who would say ‘get into it’ like that.”

Steven looked away again, a blush creeping up his cheek. “Music is important. It’s a lot of fun. You should enjoy it. People were made for music.” He didn’t want to say it was important that she_ felt _ it too. But he didn’t have to.

She smiled, only a little shyly. “Well, if you insist.” Connie stood up and started moving. There wasn’t a lot of rhyme or reason to it, but she laughed a little. “It’s a good song!”

Steven didn’t know when her hands found his or what dance they were doing. Suddenly they were twirling and laughing, and it didn’t matter so much that she was seeing him be silly and human with his dad. It was okay, because she was being silly and human too. She liked seeing him that way, and she wanted to know how to see it more. She wanted to share. And sharing that with him felt warm and fuzzy and close, and--

The music came to a halt, and Stevonnie stopped spinning on their heel and stared back at Dadster Universe. They didn’t know who was more shocked, Greg or themself. They looked down, came to terms with their own sudden existence, and then immediately ended it, flying apart into two flushed teens. They jumped to stand together, waiting for the hammer to fall.

“You two can _ fuse?! _” Greg exclaimed, eyes wide and unreadable.

“We don’t do it all the time!” Connie answered quickly. “But, uh, yes.”

“Unbelievable.” He sat heavily. “With a human? That’s… wow!” He broke into a wide smile “Steven, I’m happy for you! How did that happen? I thought fusion was gems only!”

“We just danced,” Steven remarked, hands behind his back and head held high. “I think maybe it’s because I’m human, so my gem already gets humans? But we haven’t worried about the how yet.”

“Mr. Universe, please just don’t tell my parents,” Connie pleaded desperately. Her heart was in her throat, terrified of what she could lose with a misplaced word to the wrong parent. “They don’t know about magic or gems, and I don’t want to have to fight them just to have Steven in my life. I’m not ready to move out yet! I still need to finish high school!”

Greg held up his hands to calm her. “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t sweat it, Connie. I get it. Fusion is something important. Nobody gets that better than me. Nobody human, anyway.”

“How do you get it?” Connie believed him, but nerves kept her wringing her hands for the moment.

Steven beamed. “Wait, is this a story you haven’t told me?”

“I guess it is, if you want to hear it.” Greg gave them a knowing grin. “Hold on. Lemme get the tape. I know the perfect place to start.”

He found an old VHS, popped it into an equally old TV, and let the music video set the stage.

* * *

Connie had to leave right after the love story ended. With no drinks or food to share, it had been an especially barren evening for Connie’s regular dose of magic. Steven wasn’t brave enough to make out in front of his dad, but he gave her a kiss on the cheek and made it extra wet and sparkly for her, sending her off giggling to catch her bus. Steven kept a smile plastered on as she walked away.

“So.” Greg tuned his guitar just to have something to do with his hands. “You two are pretty close, huh?”

“Yeah.” Steven returned to the van and sat with his dad, leaning his head against the door and finally letting the smile slip off his face. “She’s just great.”

“Sounds like there’s more to that than meets the eye.” Greg let out a few test strums. “Come on. I’ll play, you talk. Sound fair, kiddo?”

Steven felt a sharp jolt of unease, and it showed on his face. “I’m not a kid, dad.”

“Yeah, I know.” Greg sighed. “Just humor your old man a little, will ya? I’d rather not feel like I’ve got a foot in the grave just yet.”

“Sorry, dad.” Steven shuffled a little closer as Greg started to play. With her gone, it was getting a little easier to let his guard down again, to be who he normally was with his dad - friendly, happy, and human. “So… Connie.”

“Connie,” Greg confirmed. “So what is she to you? Friend? Girlfriend?”

Steven groaned. “I don’t even know. I’ve been trying to figure that out.”

“Is it really that complicated?” Greg played something simple and soft, clean single notes coming slow. Steven found himself humming along, throwing in riffs and variations on the melody that Greg tried to answer with his own. It gave him time to think. He sifted through the ties on his heart, binding him to Connie and his dad and the gems and some impossible distance to a throne in another galaxy.

“I think it is,” Steven said finally. “I think, if I’m honest, I want her to be that close. But that’s not what I should want. And I don’t think she should want it either. The gems would be upset if they knew.” He paused. “Well, probably just Pearl. But Pearl knows the most about what I need to do.”

Greg’s hands halted for a minute, letting the strings fall still before he started back up. “Pearl has a lot of ideas about you, Steven. That doesn’t mean they’re all right.”

“But she has reasons. Good reasons.” Steven looked up at the stars. He thought about telling his father that Pearl was changing, too. That Pearl wasn’t the same person she was even a few months ago. That humanity creeping into his life might have been making things more different than he was ready for, and more dangerous than he liked to think about. He swallowed. “Earth has to be protected. And Connie is helping and hurting at the same time.”

“Well, I know how she’s helping, training with Pearl and all. How do you think she’s hurting?”

Steven burned with quiet shame. “It’s not really her. It’s me. She’s making me… different.”

“Do you think she’s making you worse?” Greg looked at his son. “You’ve been happier. Almost like when you were a kid. I’ve liked it a lot.”

“I know! She’s making me act like a child. Letting Lapis out, trying to be nice to Peridot, talking back to Pearl… she’s making me soft.” Steven pulled his legs up, hiding his face sullenly behind them.

“You say soft, but I think she’s making you human.” His dad chuckled. “You’re more Steven than you’ve been in years.”

“You don’t get it, dad!” Steven’s heart raced and he sprung up, pacing back and forth behind the van. “I’m taking risks and chances I can’t afford to take! It’s already come back to hurt us once, and if we hadn’t gotten lucky with the way they decided to lock me up in space, it’d be over! If I let her keep doing this to me, if I can’t be a Diamond, then why do I even exist?”

“Steven.” Greg set the guitar aside and stood up to hug him. “You can just be whoever you are, and that’s okay. You don’t _ need _a reason to exist.”

“But I have one, don’t I?” Steven’s arms hung limply at his sides, and he looked over Greg’s shoulder into the van. Somewhere in there, he knew, there was a tape that no one had never seen. A tape from his mom that he had been too afraid to look at since the day he found it. “I was made for a reason.”

Greg stiffened. “Steven, I knew your mom. Just because I didn’t hear exactly what she had to say to you doesn’t mean I don’t know that she wouldn’t make you for some kind of... gem power grab.”

“She hid a lot of things. Even from you, dad.” Steven felt him pull away, and his face fell as he saw the lost, distant look on his father. “Sorry.”

“You’ve got a point. I didn’t know everything. Not even the Diamond stuff, and maybe she should’ve told me that.” Greg closed his eyes and sat back down with his guitar, blindly strumming to soothe himself. “But I knew who she was, deep down. And she wasn’t the kind of person to think of any person that way. Definitely not her own son.”

Steven sat again. “I wish I could be as sure as you are.”

Once more Greg played, and Steven hummed. He thought about Connie. About Rose. About Pearl. He tried to drift off, to enjoy his dad playing familiar, comforting songs. He tried to let it just be them, to let everything lie, but the thoughts kept coming until they drowned out even the music.

“I told her about the tape,” Steven said after another long break. “How I’ve always been too afraid to look at it. First afraid that mom would want something I wouldn’t want to be. Then afraid she’d want something I’m not becoming and I’d let her down.”

“Shows a lot of trust to be that open, Steven.” Greg nodded. “What did Connie say?”

“She said I should watch it. That I should know what my mom thought about me, and that in the end I’d still be me, no matter what she thought.” Steven let out a long breath, just as shaky as his voice. “She thought I deserved to know what mom was thinking when she decided she’d rather me exist than her.”

“And what do you think about that?”

“I’m still afraid,” he admitted. It was an understatement--his heart was thundering like a stampede. “But I think I’m changing. The gems want one thing from me, and Connie seems like she wants something else. And I don’t know what I want for sure, but… maybe knowing what mom wanted will help.”

Greg stood solemnly and walked around the van to the glove box. He returned with a cassette marked _ Steven _ in elegant, flowing script. “Do you need space?” He asked gently.

“No!” Steven couldn’t even take it from his hands, and he shook his head frantically. “Please. I really want you with me, dad.”

“Alright. We’ll watch it together, kiddo.” Greg smiled, popped the music video out, and replaced it with Rose Quartz’s last message.

Steven had spent years wondering what the message would be. Part of him thought it would be an order of some kind, instructions about his role. He was certain his mother would tell him about everything--Homeworld, the Diamonds, who was coming and how they could prepare. He had thought of her as Rose Quartz, leader of the Crystal Gems, or Pink Diamond, one of the four monarchs of Homeworld.

He’d never thought of her like this. Calm and simple and… and _ human. _Enjoying a day on the beach with Greg. Laughing and poking fun and letting Greg monologue about his epic dadness. Marveling at life just for being alive. Finally she turned the camera, and he saw his mother.

Even after all of that, he still couldn’t help expecting something grand. Some destiny, some purpose. But instead Rose told him she loved him from 18 years in the past. And then, finally, she told him who she meant him to be, and it was so simple he could scarcely believe it:

_ “...Because you’re going to be something extraordinary. You’re going to be a human being. _

_ “Take care of them, Steven.” _

And she kissed his dad, and that was all his mother had to show him.

“She didn’t say anything about the gems at all.” Steven was thunderstruck, barely able to keep on his feet. He stared at the staticy TV, waiting for there to somehow be more. Feeling too many things to name as it sunk in that no more was coming. “Not a word.”

“Your mom was always more interested in life here than the gems, Steven.” Greg sniffled and wiped his eyes. “I wish she’d told me what she wanted to tell you. I should’ve… I don’t know what I would’ve done. But I should’ve done something.”

“She never wanted me to be a Diamond,” Steven marveled. “She never even thought of it.” And in the end his fear had come true, the fear he’d held onto since he’d been able to think of Rose as a person with wants and not just a shadow from the past. Because his mother _ had _ wanted something for him--she’d wanted him to be Steven. And instead he’d spent his whole life trying to be the next Pink Diamond. His eyes burned. “She didn’t even want me to know about it.”

His dad stared at the snowy static on the screen. “Rose loved life. She thought that just being alive was incredible. I don’t have to tell you, you just heard it. She was _ always _ like that. To give herself up to make you, she had to think there was something in life that was worth sacrificing everything for.”

“But I thought--maybe she knew I’d be different, that I’d be stronger than the Diamonds. I thought I was supposed to be a ruler.” Steven’s eyes burned more and he ground his palm into one before the tears fell. “The gems didn’t know. They couldn’t have known and defied her on purpose, could they? They wouldn’t.”

“I can’t tell you what they knew. After they found out about your gem, I was locked out even more than I already was.” Greg sighed. “I’m sorry, Steven. Maybe you should tell them?”

“No!” Steven exclaimed. “If they know and they decided to ignore Mom, I’ll know they were awful, and if they don’t know what they did it’ll kill them!” He grit his teeth. “They chose this for me. But they had to. They need me to be Pink Diamond.”

“They do. But I think you might need to be Steven, too. And they didn’t let that happen,” Greg said gently. Steven saw his dad swallow. “I didn’t let that happen.”

Steven crumpled in on himself, dropping heavily onto the bumper. “I wanted answers. And now I don’t know what to do.”

Greg put a hand on his back. “I think you have a pretty good idea.”

“She still wanted me to take care of them.” Steven wiped his eyes, dug deep, and let himself say a truth he’d felt for a long time. “But I should’ve had a chance to be human too.”

“You should have.” The hand turned into a hug, and Steven took it gladly. “But you still do, schtu-ball. You’re worried about Connie softening you up, but I think that’s exactly what you need. You’re so much more _ you _ than you’ve been in years. It’s good for you.”

“But what are the gems going to say? If I can’t be a diamond, then--”

“Steven, to _ heck _with the gems!” Greg burst out. He held Steven out at arm’s length, staring him in the eye. “It’s your life, it’s your choice! Not theirs! They need you, but you get to decide who you’re gonna be, not them! They can take what they can get, and if they don’t like it, well, that’s their problem!”

It seemed Rose wasn’t the only parent surprising Steven tonight. He blinked back tears at his dad’s wild outburst. “Dad?”

The wild anger in Greg’s face fell back into an embarrassed grimace. “Sorry, kiddo.” Greg’s arms dropped. “Had that one in me for a while.”

“No, dad. You’re right.” Steven swallowed and looked off towards the temple. “I’m gonna just… let things happen. And if I change, then they can take me as I am.” He paused. “I like who I’ve been lately. Even with the mistakes. I like it.”

“I’m really happy to hear that, son.” Greg smiled and nodded. “It’s getting late.”

“Yeah.” Steven picked up the ukulele sitting in the back of the van and smiled back at his dad. “But I think we’ve got time for one more song.”

Greg grinned and picked up the guitar, and they played til the sun came up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long. It's been a rough month and I was getting my own story done. Thank you for reading!


	12. Guardians

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truths come out, and parents are confronted by their children.

“Left here. No, wait, right. Right!”

Connie pulled Steven around a corner, and the two of them held their breath behind an exam room door as a shadow crossed in front of it. They waited a minute, Steven’s shield held towards the door in anxious preparation, before they let themselves breathe. 

The trip to the hospital was supposed to be a simple sword-retrieval mission, only called a mission because that made it more fun and let Connie think less about how close her mom was to finding out everything now that she’d found Rose’s sword. But as soon as they arrived, they’d found the darkened halls roamed by something terrible, a faceless mass of limbs that let out muffled groans from somewhere within and chased them through the hospital as soon as it somehow spotted them.

“What are those?” Connie breathed. “Those aren’t gems, are they? They’re…”

“They’re awful.” Steven’s face flickered between anger and horror. “They’re shards of gems broken in the war, forced to fuse into those monsters by Homeworld. Garnet and I found some at one of the kindergartens, but they don’t understand anything. How did they even get here?”

Shards, war, kindergarten. So much that Connie barely knew and needed to know. But she ignored it for now. “We can worry about that when we have the sword back.” Connie braced herself and dared a peek. “We’re clear. Turn left out the door, then right at the next hall. Mom’s office is that way.”

Steven nodded, and he let her guide them both out through the darkened hospital, trusting her to know the paths he didn’t. They moved slowly at first, trying to make as little sound as they could, but as they turned right down a long dark hall, a scream rang out of one of the offices that chilled Connie’s blood. She started sprinting. “Mom!”

“Connie, quiet!” But behind them he could already hear the muffled roar, and Steven sprinted after her, their steps echoing down the empty halls.

She heard something shatter from an exam room, and she pushed through the door. Her mother was held in a corner, trying her best to strike at the  _ thing _ holding her down. Priyanka heard the door open and her eyes widened in horror. “Connie, no! Get out of here! Call security!” One of the hands reached her throat and squeezed, and her voice cut off as she gripped the arm, helpless to shift it.

Connie didn’t think. She rushed to the gem and pulled with all her magic-boosted strength. Its attention turned to her, and as soon as the grasping hands released her mother and Connie heard her gasp for air, she hurled the monster across the room. It struck the wall and shattered a poster, sending shards of glass cascading onto the floor. Steven was already there, shield up to pin the mutant before it could rise. It gripped his shield and they struggled. Steven was able to hold it, but there was another roar from the hall, coming closer.

She half-helped, half-pulled Priyanka to her feet. “Mom. Where’s my sword?!”

“ _ Your _ sword?” Priyanka coughed, but apparently even being choked by a monster couldn’t stop her from trying to parent. She swung her bag from her back to her chest, and Connie spied the sword jutting out as she clutched it to her chest. “Connie, I said no swords! What would you even do with it? You don’t know how to use a sword!”

Steven growled. “Yes she does!” He stumbled back away from the pinned mutant as another one appeared in the doorway, and he raised a bubble around the three of them to keep the monsters out. “She’s been learning from Pearl whenever she has free time, and she’s already an expert! You don’t know what you’re talking about, so let her have it so we can handle this!”

“That’s not possible.” Priyanka held the bag tighter, her eyes darting between Steven and Connie. “We taught her better than that! I know my daughter, and she’d never do something so recklessly dangerous!”

Connie didn’t bother arguing. The pounding on the outside of the bubble was too urgent. She reached forward and pulled the sword and sheath out of the bag, ignoring her mother’s resistance. She’d have to explain later. “He’s telling the truth. I’m part of this and you’re not. So trust us to do this.” She pulled the sword free and let the sheath drop to the bottom of the bubble. “Ready, Steven?”

“Arms first. Then the big one.” He pressed a hand forward, and the bubble burst outward, sending the hulking fusion flying out the door and pressing the smaller one back against the wall. Steven was already in motion, holding out his shield for the many-armed mutant to grab, then shifting their weight into a spin, bringing the mutant around right as Connie lined up a slash from her sword. The fusion burst, and they raced out of the door.

The fusion in the hall was on its feet, but they didn’t give it a moment to recover. As Steven ran out the door he threw his shield, and Connie followed behind him. The shield struck the thing in the upper half of its mass, right where a head would have been on a normal gem, and its limbs flailed wildly upwards in a vain attempt to catch it. Connie ducked beneath, taking the opening Steven had given her, and drew her sword up through the monster from bottom to top. It let out a pitiful whine before poofing. Steven caught the mess of shards before they hit the ground and gathered them together with the other unfortunate fusion, bubbling both and sending them home.

“Did anything hit you?” Steven asked softly, looking Connie over.

“Of course not.” She slid the sword back in its sheath. “I’m better than that.”

Priyanka stared, dumbstruck by everything she’d seen. She couldn’t even question it--though Connie knew that this, at least, was only temporary.

“Let’s get outside,” Connie said, unable to meet her mother’s eyes. “We’ll keep you safe. And then… I guess we’ll have to talk.”

* * *

Steven watched the fight, sword clutched to his chest, unsure of what to do. It really wasn’t his business, was it? It wasn’t like he had a mom. He didn’t know how to talk to one, not without all the lies and facades. But he and Connie had, in the heat of battle, confessed too much for things to simply die down once the fight was over.

“You want me to approve of you turning yourself into a soldier?”

“I don’t need your approval!”

“This morning, I thought your dream was to become an astronaut, and now you want to fight monsters like some military high-school dropout!”

“Seriously? Are you even hearing yourself right now? I’m telling you that I’m training to save the Earth and the way you’re responding it like some white-collar socialite looking down on-”

Priyanka’s voice rose to a cracked shout, “I am responding like a mother who has been told her daughter wants to go fight an intergalactic war! Forgive me if my phrasing comes across as patronizing when I’m trying not to think about you coming home in a box!”

There was a moment of tension, mother and daughter staring one another down. Connie fell silent, her fists lowering. “You’re right. This is a lot. I should be nicer.”

“I should be nicer too.” Priyanka’s voice trembled as she reached up a hand to wipe her eyes. “I’m a doctor, Connie. I’ve seen how people come back from war. I don’t want to lose you.”

“This is important,” Connie said after a long pause. “Not just to me, but for the world. I wanted to be an astronaut because I wanted to be part of something big, something real, and this is my chance. I know there’s a chance that I could die and I know the odds are good that I’ll come out of this with all kinds of scars. But I’m nearly eighteen and I know the risks. It’s my choice and I think it’s the right one.”

Priyanka softly cradled Connie’s face. “I know the world needs saving, but why does it have to be you? Isn’t there anyone else? Someone older? You’re a child.”

Connie laughed, looking back at Steven. “Well, uh, I’m kinda his only friend.”

“So take him to a football game and send a jock into space,” Priyanka muttered.”

Connie laughed, fully this time. “Mom!”

“I’m kidding!” She sighed, pulling Connie in for a hug. “I wish we have moved here a few years earlier like we first planned. I would’ve had time to talk you out of it.”

Connie hummed as she squeezed her mother tight. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

“No, I wouldn’t have.” She agreed with a laugh. “But I’ll keep hoping you switch to something a little less deadly.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

And Steven stood there, awkward as ever, and even more uncomfortable with the fact that he didn’t know how to help them, what to say, and that he had stood by and watched them work it out themselves. Wasn’t he supposed to fix things? Wasn’t he a hero? But here he was on the sidelines, clutching a sword he didn’t know how to use and feeling useless.

Priyanka’s arm reached out for him. “Come here. It sounds like no one is mothering you.”

He cautiously stepped forward. “What do you mean?”

Her firm fingers squeezed his chin as she scowled. “Why are they sending you off to some big war? Can’t they take care of these things themselves?”

“I’m kind of a big deal.” He laughed and blushed, suddenly feeling awkward. “I mean, I’m like a prince. I’m really important. And the gems really need me to fix everything or else it’ll never get better.”

“It’s not your job to fix everyone else,” Priyanka said with a frown. “Prince or no. If you want to go around saving the world, I can’t stop you any more than I can stop Connie, but you should do it for the right reasons. You should do it your way.”

He felt tears sting his eyes. “Um, yes ma’am.”

She wrapped him tightly in a hug with Connie, and he hugged them fiercely back. Priyanka’s voice was as stern as ever, but surprisingly warm in his ear, “Steven, you should talk to them.”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

Steven had a team meeting. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that he wished it was a family meeting, that he wished family and sister and mom and aunt were terms he could throw around in his house. The cassette was in his hands and, despite the content, all he could think about was just how inhuman it made him feel.

The gems watched him expectantly, so he began. “Mom left a tape. It was in Lion’s mane and I… I could never make myself watch it.”

Pearl gasped quietly. “Is Rose…?”

“Yeah. She talks. Y-you can see her. Um, I’ll make you a copy.” He rubbed the back of his neck uncertainly. “Did you guys know what she wanted me to be?”

“What do you mean, man?” Amethyst asked. “She just made you. She didn’t leave us a note.”

“Right. Yeah.” He fiddled with the tape. “Except she did. For me. A-and she said she wanted me to be a human being.”

Amethyst laughed. “Well, she messed up dude. You’ve still got that gem jammed in your belly.”

Steven scowled. “No! She didn’t mess up! I’m still human, or… or half-human! And human beings can do whatever they want. Even stuff their parents don’t like.” He swallowed, lowering his eyes. “Even stuff their parents would hate.”

“You’re distressed,” Garnet said coolly. “Tell us what’s wrong.”

For a moment he couldn’t speak, his heart and thoughts both racing. But he calmed himself as much as he could, he set his jaw, and he forced the truth out. “My whole life, you guys have been telling me that I’m going to make a great Diamond someday, that I’m the leader of the rebellion and I’m going to fix the shattered gems and… and shatter the Diamonds and I…” He groaned, shaking his head and closing his eyes. “But that isn’t me! It’s not how I want to do stuff! I don’t want to hurt people!”

Pearl’s expression flickered into a frown. “After what you did with Lapis, you might not have a choice. Homeworld is-”

“I’m not saying I don’t want to help all the gems still living under Homeworld!” Steven cut her off, temper building. “I’m not saying I’m giving up! But I don’t want to hurt anyone! I want to do this my way. I want to talk to people. I want to make a difference in the ways that I’m good at, and not just do stuff the way you guys used to.”

Garnet frowned a little. “Steven, we’ve always loved that you’re so willing to talk things out. But you can’t-”

“I can!” Steven cried. “I can do whatever I need to do! You put me in charge! You said I’m supposed to be some… some kind of ruler on Homeworld and set everything back the way it’s supposed to be! I’m supposed to be a leader!”

“And you are,” Pearl said gently. “But that doesn’t mean you know everything about how to lead, or about how to use your powers, or-”

“You can’t have it both ways!” he shouted. “Either I’m in charge and I do things the way I think I should do them, or you can’t put all of that on me! That’s not… it’s not fair for you to not listen to what Mom wanted for me, and then not even listen to what I want for myself! I don’t want to rule Homeworld! I don’t want to fight all the time! But if I have to do it to protect the planet, the least you can do is let me do it right!”

“Steven, we can’t-”

But this time, Amethyst cut her off. “Garnet, I think he’s right. I mean, he’s either our leader or not, y’know? We can’t treat him like a quartz and a diamond. We gotta pick one. And if Steven says he wants to do it his way, I mean… If Rose really said she wanted him to be human, that’s kinda like her last order, right? We should follow it.”

Garnet crossed her arms, thinking it over, then murmured, “You might be right.”

“Really?” Steven whispered, looking around at the three of them. “You’re really going to let me do it my way?”

Pearl’s smile was thin, but she was trying her best. “I don’t understand much about humans, but it does seem like you’ve finally… matured. Gems come out of the ground knowing who they are and what they're for, able to be independent and make their own choices. You've reached that point, and we need to start respecting that. I couldn’t always understand Rose’s plans either, but things mostly worked out in the end. Better than if any of us had planned it, I suppose.”

Steven swallowed. “So the next time we meet Peridot, you’ll let me talk to her? Or try to talk to her. We don’t just have to keep her in a bubble for forever?”

Garnet nodded. “You’re in charge, Steven. We’ll do it all your way.”


	13. Not-A-Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven and Connie go on a not-a-date.

Gems didn’t have birthdays. Steven was a gem, so he didn’t have a birthday. If he did have a birthday, it would be August fifteenth, but he didn’t have one, of course. It just so happened that he was kind of born on August fifteenth, if you could call it being born, and today was August fifteenth, and he and Connie were going to hang out together. One could, in theory, refer to said event as a celebration of his birthday which one could say was today, if one was so inclined to do so.

The other thing was that one could theoretically refer to today as was a date. This would also be inaccurate, but he could understand why one might feel that way. They were driving out to Charm City early in the morning to spend the day together. He had told her to dress nice, of course, so they could go to any restaurant they happened to think looked especially good, even a fancy one.

“Dress nice like…” Connie had asked uncertainly. “What do you think dressing nice is? Like a dress? Or a suit?” She had faltered a moment, then asked. “I mean, which do you think I’d look nicer in?”

“I don’t know.” He bounced a ball off one of the walls as he sat on the floor of his living room, three steady, repeating beats as he threw over and over. “Both? You’d look fine in anything. You seem like you’re, you know, conventionally attractive. You have…” The ball smacked him in the forehead as he searched for the right words. “A conventionally attractive body.”

“What?” she asked, and he couldn’t tell if she was baffled or mad. “What are you talking about? I’m just asking if you think I’d look better in a dress or a suit!”

“Both?” he suggested meekly.

“Steven, I don’t have a dress suit. I’m not an Empire City socialite. I have a red dress and a blue suit. Which one do I wear?”

“I’m gonna wear a suit,” he said. “And it’ll be a soft pink. So, maybe if you wear the red dress we’ll match? Both hot colors.”

She looked him up and down, and he could see her imagining him suited up. “You’ll look conventionally attractive on our not-a-date.”

“It’s not a date.”

“That’s what I said.”

He rubbed his cheek and muttered, “It’s the way you said it!”

Steven had been unable to change her mind in that argument. That was fine. They both knew it wasn’t a date. As long as that was clear, there wouldn’t be any hassle. He  _ did _ have to go all out, of course. Not because it was a date, but because he had to be drop-dead gorgeous and have her speechless. He was Steven Universe, Diamond Prince, and the romantic flair he bestowed with his mere presence could not be understated.

“Is that a  _ cape _ ?” Amethyst had laughed, and Steven had flushed and shoved her out of the room, shouting some words he’d probably feel guilty about later. Amethyst had only cackled all the harder. It didn’t matter. Steven knew about fashion. He was going to blow Connie away.

She came to his house in a simple red dress and a wide-brimmed sun hat and he forgot how to speak.

The dress itself was bright, cinching in at the waist and billowing out to her knees. It moved gently in the wind, surrounding her in the warm, flickering flame of a candle that made her look warmer and more vibrant than ever. The dress was just tight enough for curves to catch his imagination. Not that he lingered there much, because she was wearing  _ makeup. _ A bright red on her lips, a brilliant gold every time she blinked. The flat golden sandals on her feet over red painted toes.

He was entranced while she said, “Why are you a peacock?”

Steven squeaked, “What?”

He was so proud of his majestic cape, a soft, pastel kind of pink that wrapped regally from his shoulders down to his knees. Beneath was a three-piece suit in the same color, a matching tie, and a touch of black from his shirt. He, of course, had his own nice flats, but nice matte black shoes to match his top. He thought he looked quite spectacular.

She leaned forward, grabbing his cape and flinging it out. “Are you trying to attract the drabber, blander females of your species? Steven, you can’t wear a suit with a cape when I’m in a sundress!”

“But you look great!” he protested.

“I look like garbage compared to your fancy stuff!” she cried, gesturing wildly to all of him. “Are you kidding me? You’re dressed for a gala and I’m dressed for a backyard barbeque!”

He raised an eyebrow. “So, would you say my outfit blows yours out of the water?”

“Wh… yes! Is that what you were going for?” She reached up to squish his cheeks, ignoring his protests as she squished and pulled and snapped, “When one person is dressed super fancy and the other isn’t, they both look stupid! Lose the cape and let’s go.”

“What if it gets cold and I have nothing to put around your shoulders?” he argued.

“It’s  _ August _ !” she shouted. ‘I’m not walking around Charm City with a boy pouring sweat and smelling like a locker room! By the stars, Steven, leave the cape and let’s get going! You’re hot enough with just the suit.”

He grinned. “Hot?”

She groaned, rubbing a cheek. “Shut up. Let’s just get going.”

“Enjoy your date, Steven.” Amethyst winked at him from the couch.

“It’s not a date,” Steven said quickly, and never noticed the human girl behind him mouthing the words with a very mocking expression, because by the time he’d turned back she was grinning brightly.

They had to roll down the windows and blast the AC on the way up because yes, as it turned out, wearing a suit with a cape in the middle of August was a bad idea. It was very hot and he and Connie grumbled and wrestled the stupid thing off as they zoomed down the long, straight highway at 70 mph. Somehow, she never said, “I told you so” and that actually meant a lot to him. Enough that he almost said, “Do you want this to be a date?” or “Today’s actually my birthday.” Both were equally terrifying in different ways, so Steven said neither.

“We’ll get there in time for brunch,” Connie pointed out as she held up the navigation on her phone. “There’s a nice place in a fancy hotel with, like, fancy seafood eggs benedict and stuff. Wanna go?”

“Sounds romantic,” he teased. “Trying to tell me something?”

“Nope,” she said with a wry smile. “But you’re loaded and I like lobster, so take a right. We’re gonna do brunch in a way worthy of that stupid peacock tail.”

He grinned and rolled his eyes, but made the turn anyway.

Steven was supposed to be a charmer, was planning to wow Connie with charm and grandeur all day long, because it wasn’t a date, but if it ever turned out to have been a date, he wanted to have always been perfect on the date that it wasn’t but could be. 

So it was very troubling when the menus arrived and there were only five entree items available for the day’s brunch. Five was very low for a menu, he thought, and neither his charm nor his grandeur helped him recognize any of them. If there were more than five, this wouldn’t be a problem. But when he looked up to Connie, she seemed completely at ease with the spartan selection. So he said nothing, and instead tried to puzzle out what blue crab bisque might be.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked over her menu. “I’m really wanting lobster benedict, it’s a really interesting take on--”

“Same!” He blurted, but in a charming way. He could tell it was charming because she snorted and giggled, and that meant it was all working out as planned. “Yeah, you said lobster on the way and it really made me want to try some.”

If it was obvious that he didn’t know what lobster benedict was, she didn’t mention it. “At least I know you were paying attention. It’s a good choice. Maybe since it’s brunch, we could just share a plate?” She smiled, and he thought there might have been some red in her cheeks beneath the makeup, but it was impossible to be sure enough to tease her about it. “We’ve got all day, we could spend a lot of it eating small bites at different places. It’s a good way to see a city, just hopping between nice restaurants and seeing what happens along the way.”

“Good idea.” He smiled back.

Lobster benedict turned out to be some buttery sauce on eggs on lobster on bread. It was incredibly heavy, and they were both happy to share the load. Steven did his best to hide the gaps in his knowledge, wishing that he’d done more research on food and restaurants before they’d come, but if he wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it Connie showed no signs.

They hit a park next. He held out his arm for her to take, like in old movies, but that only made her snort and push him. When they came across a muddy spot, he started to take off his coat, only for her to gasp and grab it from his hands before he covered it for her to walk over. She just walked around the puddle instead.

There was a little coffee shop there, and he got a very grown-up, mature cappuccino, only for Connie to order something called a Mudslide which involved every chocolate syrup they had and several shots of espresso blended with ice and crammed into a very tall cup, which was very at odds with her outfit. It looked sweet and delicious, unlike his stupid sugarless cappuccino.

He cleared his throat. “So, Ms. Maheswaran, are you enjoying this day?”

“You know, people on dates don’t usually do…” She gestured between them. “This. This fancy pretentious stuff.”

“Well, it’s not a date,” Steven retorted, feeling his cheeks heat. “This is just who I am when I’m in a big fancy city, so I can blend in with the locals.”

There was an awkward moment where the two of them stopped, looking around the park to find it mostly full of people in jeans and t-shirts with a few people running around in workout clothes. Connie arched an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. Yeah, Steven, it feels like you’re trying to make this into some kind of date.”

“It’s not a-”

“And it’s  _ nooooot _ a date,” she said dramatically, rolling her eyes and holding up her hands. Well, one hand, since the other was preoccupied with coffee. “But, you know, even if it was a date, you don’t need to act fancy or refined or anything. Dates are about getting to know each other better. Having fun. Not faking.”

His heart fluttered a little in his chest. “So, learning you’re a caring person who’d stop someone from looking like an idiot on a date - that would be a dating activity.”

“Oh, it would,” Connie said with a reasonable nod. “But this isn’t a date. Or, at least,  _ I’m _ not going to call it a date if you’re not going to call it a date.”

Steven grinned. “I’m not gonna call it a date if you’re not.”

And so they were at an impasse, not that it stopped them from arguing. They bickered about what a date could be, what it should be. They wrestled a little, gently, trying not to muss up each other’s clothes, and only settled when they reached a deli that looked delicious. They stopped in and ordered a sampler tray of meat and cheese to munch on.

It started to drizzle outside, so they slowed in their eating, starting to look more at their phones as they settled into the comfortable scene. Without moving her eyes from the screen, Connie asked, “Anything interesting with you lately?”

“Not a lot,” he said, automatically keeping her out. Her eyes swept across the screen, comfortable and relaxed, because she didn’t know that there was a little green gremlin living in his bathroom. He didn’t know that she kept mumbling about a Cluster, and all the honeyed words in the world were still slow progress on what that meant.

“Me neither,” Connie said with a sigh. “I was supposed to be doing college prep, but now I’m just kinda senior sliding and bored with school.”

School. College. She was going to leave soon, wasn't she? She had career goals, probably. Aspirations outside of him. He blurted, “There’s another gem. Peridot. I’m working with her right now, so that’s pretty exciting. I think she’ll be really nice in the future.”

She looked up with a grin, instantly raining down on him with a barrage of curiosity and questions. “That’s amazing! What’s she like? How’d she get here? Are more gems going to come to Earth? Like, are there a bunch of little rebellions all across the galaxy or something?”

“N-no,” he said, and wished he hadn’t said anything at all. “I, uh, don’t think I should talk about it yet. It’s still kind of up in the air.”

She hummed as she set her phone down, reaching for a piece of hard salty cheese as her eyes met his. “I can wait. But you’re going to talk to me about everything that happens, right? I’m in this all the way, Steven. You can’t just push me out now.”

“I know,” he said softly. “I won’t do it again.”

Rain pattered against the window as they ate in awkward silence, and soon returned to looking at their phones. Thankfully, the weather cleared soon enough, and they headed off to explore more of the city. He was glad Connie had chosen flats. He hadn’t even thought to mention they’d be doing a lot of walking. He hadn’t thought they’d be doing a lot of walking.

Really, he hadn’t planned the not-date out very well at all. Steven proved that just fine when they stopped into a cat cafe for an hour, and he found himself thoroughly covered in cat hair, humiliated as Connie took pictures and giggled in the corner over his lack of charm or grace as he cuddled every cat he could get his hands on. That was alright. He’d find a way to be fancier later.

Because he did plan one thing - dinner at  _ La Belle _ . It was a very fancy French place, with a private room and everything, and as he told Connie he watched her face get flustered, her mouth drop open with shock, and relished in the squeak in her voice as she gasped, “Steven! I’m so underdressed! They’re not gonna let me in!”

He smirked and preened. “We both fit the dress code, my lady, and my suit is elegant enough to cover for the two of us.”

“That’s not how it works!” she protested, and he dragged her by the elbow as she frantically typed on her phone, looking up the dress code to ensure she wouldn’t be kicked out of the restaurant before they walked in the door.

She wasn’t, of course. He had checked that much. He had also looked up a lot of pictures of the place, because he had wanted it to seem like he had been there before. It didn’t work, but he was sure Connie was too busy gawking to notice his own wondrous stares.

Despite being packed with people, the restaurant was quiet. It was even quieter in their own private room, curtains blocking out even the slight chatter, and keeping the room romantically dim with candles on the table providing most of the light. Both of them stuttered at the waiter, stumbling over drink orders, sneakily looking up foreign menu items on their phone in hopes of appearing sophisticated.

Once the man left, Connie hissed as she leaned over the table, “What is  _ wrong _ with you? Why would you do all this for just the two of us when it’s not even a date?!”

He flushed, scowling a little as he hissed back, “I just wanted to have a nice time! I thought it was a really fun day!”

She leaned back, clearing her throat as she straightened in her chair. “I… of course I had a fun day. I mean, we did loads of fun stuff together. You were cute and funny. This is a really nice place, even if I’m a little underdressed.”

He looked down at his lap and mumbled, “You’re not underdressed. You look great.” If it was a date he would have been more charming.  _ You’re the prettiest person here _ or  _ It doesn’t matter what you wear because you’re always gorgeous _ . But it wasn’t a date, so more romantic responses swirled in his mind without ever falling out.

Connie giggled nervously. “You too! I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful, or like I’m not having a good time. I guess I’m just confused about why you’re going so far.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the curtains around them. Private. Quiet. No one to hear his secrets but her. He confessed quietly, “You’re always up to hang out with me if we’re doing something interesting, and I’ve been really lonely lately. Pearl and Garnet have been really distant ever since I brought up the changes to the plan.”

“Distant?” she asked, eyebrows coming together. “But Pearl never leaves you alone.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said with a little laugh, remembering too many days of his childhood making his own fun, and every meal he’d ever had alone. “They always… I was supposed to be a leader someday, but now it feels like they’re really acting like it. I feel like there’s this wall between me and Amethyst, like I’m really a  _ Diamond _ now, you know? And I know there’s a wall between me and Pearl and Garnet, because they only talk about Peridot.”

“That’s the new gem,” she said, and he watched her quickly connect the dots. “You’re the one taking the lead on it. You’re being nice to her, right? Trying to bring her around so she’ll talk to you while they probably just want to beat her up.”

He nodded. Talking to her was always easy, a relief - she was clever and picked up on it all so quickly, without him needing to explain. “And they don’t get a lot from Peridot that I didn’t know already. They’re not as good at talking as I am. And it’s really weird, because it feels like I’m the adult now. I’m making all the decisions, and I have all the skills, and everyone’s looking at me to tell them what to do.”

“That sounds really hard,” she murmured.

“You have no idea,” he said with a laugh, his hands coming up to tangle in his hair. “The whole world is on my shoulders. Literally, the  _ fate of the world _ is all on me trying to get this new gem to open up, and I don’t know what to do! I’m trying my best, but what if it isn’t good enough? And I can’t tell the gems, because I’m a Diamond for real now. I have to be strong.

“Not that it matters, because if I told them they probably wouldn’t even listen. They never pay attention to when I’m upset, or  _ anything  _ that matters to me,” he said, all of it tumbling out now. He felt stupid, and he was sure he looked stupid. If nothing else, he didn’t look much like a Diamond as a hand came up to cover his face.

“Anytime anything human mattered to me they didn’t  _ care _ ,” he muttered. “All they wanted was gem stuff all the time. I mean, it’s my birthday and they don’t remember. Even if they did remember they wouldn’t care except for the fact that Mom died today.”

“What?!” Connie cried, then flushed as she dropped her voice low. Her eyes were wide and shocked. “Steven, it’s your  _ birthday _ ?”

He swallowed. “Gems don’t have birthdays.”

“Humans do,” she said, taking his hand eagerly. “And you’re  _ half human _ . You deserve someone making the day special! I’m sorry, Steven. If I knew it was your birthday I would have bought you something, or at least treated you to lunch.”

“You’re enough,” he said, and immediately regretted it as his face flushed.

Connie grinned, raising an eyebrow. “You didn’t just say that.”

He laughed, trying to tug his hand back but finding her fingers securely wrapped around him. “Listen, you’re my best friend, and you’re always there for me, so just you always being there and hanging out when no one else does is-”

Connie stood, leaning across the table to give him a gentle peck on the cheek, stopping his words dead in his mouth. “This has been a very nice date, Steven.”

He swallowed, staring up at her. “It’s not a date.”

“It’s your birthday.” she murmured, tapping his nose. “So here’s your gift: Steven, I would  _ love _ for this to be a date. Can we call it one?”

He could feel the stupid grin spreading across his face, the ridiculousness of their not-a-date falling away, hearing another person call August fifteenth  _ your birthday _ out loud, not just the day Rose Quartz died. “I’ll call it one if you call it one.”

She dragged her chair around the table, sitting close to him and resting her head on his shoulder. “Happy birthday, Steven.”

It was a warm affection, a comfortable one. He wasn’t really sure what to call what was happening between them, wasn’t sure what feelings were there. It wasn’t like his old romantic movies, or even the more modern ones. But calling it a date was its own kind of definition, its own kind of comfort, just like calling August fifteenth his birthday. He put his arm around her shoulder and murmured, “Happy first date, Connie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be Gem Hunt, and next chapter will start diverging a little harder than before. We won't go completely off the rails just yet, but there will definitely be more marked differences from canon. The changes are starting to pile up. See you then!


	14. Gem Stakeout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie gets filled in on what she missed, and Jasper arrives on the beach.

The only thing Connie noted about the earthquakes was that they happened. It was definitely abnormal to have earthquakes in Beach City. Her cursory research and the information she’d gathered from the news told her that they were nowhere near a fault line, that Beach City had no history of earthquakes, but better some vibration on land than something out at sea. Tsunamis were nasty business.

But it was hardly the kind of thing she would chalk up to magic. Strange, sure, but not  _ magic _ . She had experienced plenty of magic and not a single bit of it had involved earthquakes, so maybe it was some sort of government thing, or some slightly abnormal geological phenomenon, because it couldn’t be magic. After all, Connie was sure she would have gotten a call from Steven if magic stuff was going on, right?

Right.

So there was no magic stuff going on, and Connie’s summer was painfully boring as she sat around and waited for Steven to call. Well, not just waited, because she was quickly far too bored to be stuck in the house all day and she didn’t want to fight with her mother about her plans after graduation either. 

She went to Steven’s house a lot, but every time she dropped by his house was empty, or one of his guardians was telling her Steven was busy at the moment, but maybe she could come back tomorrow. That was frustrating and strange, and even worse - even in her sword lessons, Pearl was inscrutable. So Connie was bored. And rejected.

She could probably solve the rejected part by calling or texting him. He had a phone. She had his number. It wasn’t too long ago that he had spammed her with messages to the point of frustration. She could return the favor. It’d be easy.  _ Hey, Steven, let me know when you’re free so we can hang. I really miss you. _ That would have been smart, but there was something furiously addictive to getting mad about him being busy and something terrifyingly vulnerable about reaching out.

Connie reached peak pettiness a week and a half into the blackout. She gathered up her camping supplies, including a few days’ rations, and set up a tent outside the Beach House, because no one was inside to tell her not to. Her parents were fed a tiny lie of omission - the fact that she was camping was mentioned. Where she was camping was not. She put on plenty of sunscreen, brought plenty of books, and kept busy as she waited for the sound of teleporting aliens inside.

Warp pads, miserably, only worked for gems. She had done her best, tried every trick she could think of to get one to activate for her, but nothing in humans could activate the magic glow. Lion didn’t seem keen on searching out Steven for her, no matter how she tried to bribe him with Lion Lickers or raw steak. Stubborn beast. So she had no luck teleporting through that measure either. And she didn’t have a care.

She camped on the beach instead, waiting for him like a scorned lover as she paged through books and gnawed on protein bars and always kept her ears sharp for the magical sound of teleportation within. How pathetic of her.

Thankfully, it didn’t take multiple days for Steven to appear. In the evening, before the sun even set, she heard the warp and scrambled to her feet, bursting into the house that was never locked. She made a slight mental note that a family with so many enemies and magic secrets really should invest in a lock, but that was to be saved for another rant.

“Go drink something hot.” Pearl worried after the boy, brushing snow off Steven’s puffed jacket. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Steven groaned as he rolled his eyes. He caught sight of Connie midroll and stiffened, the action noticeable even beneath the layers of fluff, and a small squeak of her name escaped him.

Pearl followed his gaze and laughed nervously. “Oh! Connie, It’s a pleasure to see you. How have you-?”

“Where’d you go?” she demanded, stepping forward before he could finish his sentence. Only a foot separated the two of them, uncomfortably close as her eyes bore into his.

Steven looked away. “None of your business! I went on a snow day.”

“You said we were a  _ team _ ,” Connie pressed. “You said you were going to let me in! I’m learning to sword fight! It’s  _ my _ planet! I deserve to know.”

Steven opened his mouth, expression petulant, but Pearl spoke before he could: “Fine. If he won’t tell you, I will. Just let him warm up first.”

Connie conceded, and though Steven and Pearl had a brief moment of bickering over the idea, it wasn’t long until they were back outside. Steven sat by her tent, a cup of hot tea in his hands as he grumbled, “It was just a mission. We were hunting Jasper.”

She frowned, shaking her head as she tried to remember where everyone was. “Wait, Jasper got loose? What about Malachite? Is Lapis okay?”

“Oh, boy. So… a lot of stuff has happened.” Steven winced as he looked down at his shoes, and now freed of his puffy jacket, she could see all the lines of tension in him. He sipped silently at his tea.

The tension moved from him to her, and Connie gripped the arm of her folding chair. “So I hear.”

He swirled his cup, trying to find a place to start. “So, you know we captured Peridot. And, uh, the last time we talked, she’d sort of told me about the Cluster, but I didn’t know how bad it was yet.”

“How bad is it?” she whispered. Her heart sank with dread, but she tried to push the feeling away and focus on him instead. “I… no. Sorry. Keep going. I’ll try not to interrupt.”

He nodded. “I-I couldn’t even tell you anything right away! I had to work with her, teach her about rain, help her calm down, before she would do anything with me, even after she found out what my gem really is. But the Cluster, it’s this ball of gem shards the Diamonds forced together and buried deep underground somewhere.” 

He was starting to sweat as he worked out how much had happened, or maybe that was just the tea warming him up. She could feel sweat beading on the back of her own neck as he spoke. “And the idea was that it would form and be some big gem monster, and they could use it as a weapon.”

Her fingers were starting to hurt from tension, but she stayed quiet and let him continue as she took her fear out on the chair.

“So then we needed to get drill parts to get down to it,” Steven continued. “It was down in the mantle, I think? And we also had to go to, uh, a gem base, to find exactly where it was. This was all like four days, right? We never stopped working. We were really busy.”

“It sounds like it. Sounds like you could have used some extra hands with something so important.” She clasped her hands in front of herself and leaned forward, trying to make the point obvious. From the corner of her eye, she could see how she’d damaged the plastic, the metal. It must have been even cheaper than she’d thought.

But Steven ignored the bait and drove through. “And right when we had the drill ready, I did a dreamwalk on accident and learned where Malachite was, but then when the gems left to take care of that, these earthquakes started and we figured out the Cluster was waking up, so we had to go take care of that right away!”

“Without me,” she mumbled.

“Connie!” he pleaded. “There wasn’t time! Peridot and I jumped in the drill, and there was barely room for us, even then I had to shapeshift smaller to fit, but we really had to do it right then.” His hands fidgeted on his cup as he took another sip. “See, if the Cluster formed, then it would be a huge body in the middle of the world, and it would, um… tear the Earth apart.”

She shot to her feet, knocking her chair back. She wanted to scream, but the words were stuck inside her. How could he have kept  _ that _ from her? Connie could feel her eyes bulging out of her head, could hear a tiny sound caught in her throat that refused to budge.

“But everything’s okay!” Steven cried. “I fixed it! The Cluster bubbled itself, we got Lapis free from Malachite, and everything’s fine!”

“ _ I’m _ not fine!” Connie cried, her temper finally boiling past the knot in her chest. She flung her arms out to the side as everything bubbled out of her. “I’m not fine at  _ all! _ I thought you were opening up to me! I thought we were in this together!”

“Everything happened so fast!” he protested. “What was I supposed to do?”

She ripped her phone from her pocket and shoved it in his face. She barely resisted the urge to really push it up against him, to grind it against his cheek, and it stopped an inch from his nose. “Have you been out of service? It only takes a minute to text! You could have done it after you taught Peridot what rain is, or when you taught her to relax, or when-”

“I got it! I had downtime,” he snapped.

Amethyst cleared her throat, and Connie jumped in surprise as she saw the purple gem sitting on the porch steps. “Uh, I know how bad it feels to get left out. Maybe we could make it up to you? We went to the moon base to find out all that stuff and it still works for humans. You wanna go?”

That did it. Connie shrieked. “You went to the  _ moon  _ without me? Are you serious?”

“I’ll take you to the moon right now!” he shouted. He flung his hands out, tea flying from the mug still clenched in his left hand. “Is that all you want? I’ll get Lion and we can see the moon!”

“It’s not about the _ moon _ !” she screamed. “Are you  _ serious _ , Steven?”

“You just said-”

‘It’s everything! You said I could help and this isn’t helping!” She kicked up a sheet of sand into the wind, watching it fly away. Her fists clenched at her side, a terrible cocktail of rage and pain settling into her stomach. “I’m not getting left out of anything else! Whatever happens next, Steven Universe, I’m gonna be right here and we’re going to fight it as a team!”

He groaned, dropping the mug into the sand as his face fell forward into his hands. “Connie, I don’t even know when Jasper’s gonna come back. We didn’t catch her and we didn’t poof her, so for all we know, she warped up to Mount Everest and she’s beating up yetis.”

“That’s fine,” she said coldly. She flung her hand out to her set up. The tent sat ominously behind them, an awful mark of his absence and her inability to communicate. “I came prepared. I’ll just hang out right here until Jasper shows up again.”

“Sure!” He shoved himself to his feet with a laugh. “That works for me. Sleep outside! If that’s how you want to spend your life, great! I hope you like sand in your underwear, and cold nights, and I hope you have money for donuts because you don’t have any way to cook!”

“Ha!” she barked. “You think I don’t know how to start a fire?”

Amethyst jerked her thumb at the house as she strolled down between them. Her smile was chill, as if the two of them weren’t having a shrieking fight. Connie supposed that, with what Steven had told her, Amethyst was pretty used to screaming and crying happening around the house. Still, she was sweet as she offered, “You can crash in there, dude. We’ve got blankets and pillows and stuff.”

“Thank you, Amethyst,” Connie said, crossing her arms. “See? She’s not  _ rude _ , unlike  _ some  _ people I could name.”

“I mean, the house is my room, so, it’s kinda rude of her to offer,” he mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Amethyst’s eyes narrowed. “Dude.”

Uncomfortable tension aside, staying in the beach house wasn’t much trouble at all. Her parents were still unsettled, but slowly coming to accept the inevitability of Connie’s dedication to saving the world. They weren’t prone to argue over the phone. Or, when they were, it was a lot better than arguing in person. And really, they were the only thing holding her back from living on her own, so this was a good first go of it.

Sleeping on the couch was surprisingly comfortable. Shopping for her own groceries was effortless, as she was perfectly happy to spend a few weeks eating quick, bland meals if need be. She wasn’t an amazing cook, but she could make do. Steven had wifi and she brought her laptop and there she was, a near-permanent fixture in his house on the off chance that a wild warrior gem would come stomping up the beach.

“Aren’t you bored?” he asked on the third day, clearly shocked that she had managed to stick around.

She simply shrugged. “I was bored at home. Nothing changed.”

“Well, we could always do stuff together,” he said, laughing a little as he sat beside her on the couch. “I’ve got a lot of great games to play. I could get some books to read. Oh! I have a bunch of great mov-”

“Are you sorry?” she asked flatly.

He blinked. “What?”

“Are. You. Sorry?” she said again, tearing her gaze from her laptop. Anger and hurt were still her constant companions, but she couldn’t be that direct. She could only manage the barest of confrontations, unwilling to let all of the trouble get coated over with pleasantries. “I don’t want to sweep this under the rug and everything just goes back to the way it was. You messed up. I want an apology.”

“_You_ want an apology?” he snapped suddenly. “You could have called! You could have texted! Maybe _you _should apologize for not speaking up! Maybe I would have listened!”

“Maybe,” she said, her eyes drifting back to the screen. “You messed up first, so you go first, how about that?”

He refused, indignant and angry, and she had no interest in any peace offering he tried to bring without an apology - not even when he started insisting he didn’t even know what the apology was supposed to be for. And maybe she should have told him more clearly. She  _ would _ have told him if he had tried at all. But he was horribly stubborn, and he kept insisting everything was fine, so the days passed into an awkward stalemate.

Really, she would have been happy just to have her feelings acknowledged. She didn’t need a full apology - not to start. Everything wasn’t fine, was all. She was hurt and she was sad, and she wanted that to mean something. She had thought with Steven, unlike everyone else in her life, her feelings would really matter.

Jasper’s inevitable appearance was somehow both awful and wonderful. Awful for the obvious reason - seeing her slink out of the ocean with a corrupted pet, the determined sneer on her face as she crawled across the beach, was terrifying. There wasn’t a thing about Jasper that didn’t strike fear into her heart.

But it was wonderful, because the moment the orange gem appeared, all thoughts of their squabble were gone. There was no time to bicker about who should have called, not when they were charging down the beach with Amethyst at their sides. There was a much, much bigger thing to deal with.

“Garnet and Pearl are still out searching! We’ve just gotta do it ourselves,” Amethyst said.

Steven nodded. “We’ll take Jas-”

She shook her head. “Get the corrupted gem first. I’ll hold her off until you can help me out, Steven.”

She was off like a flash, shouting at Jasper and leaving Connie and Steven to the big, corrupted beast.

The sound of a cracking whip hit their backs as Steven and Connie drove Jasper’s beastly corruption away from the quartzes’ brawl. Their eyes met for just a moment, and a plan passed wordlessly between them. Steven headed straight for the jaws of the corrupted gem, shield raised to fend off rending claws and biting fangs, and Connie dashed through the sand, footsteps as light as she could manage to keep from kicking up sand. Carefully she flanked it, watching and waiting for the right moment.

Steven braced himself and caught the monster’s claws on a shield, and Connie pressed in. The corrupted gem was mindless, all rage and hate, and never considered her until she drove her sword into its barrel up to the hilt. It roared, ready to turn on her, but Steven shoved with his shield and she followed suit, tilting Jasper’s ally until it tumbled onto its side.

Connie pulled at her sword, yanking it free, and prepared another blow. The monster flailed, claws flying blindly to find her, only to catch on a sphere of light as Steven leapt close to protect them both with a bubble. “You okay?” He panted.

“Yeah. Thanks.” She nodded, and on her signal he pushed the bubble back out, releasing it and sending the corruption’s claws aside. It only gave them a moment, but in that moment Connie slashed thrice, and the monster keened before bursting into smoke.

Across the beach they saw Amethyst charge in a desperate play, spinning up a cloud and crashing towards Jasper. The larger gem kicked her like a football without budging an inch, and before their eyes she drove her head forward in a vicious headbutt. Amethyst was tossed into the sand hard enough to send it billowing up into a cloud.

And from the cloud, Jasper emerged with a vicious smirk and a violet gem gripped in her hand.

Steven’s hand flew back, and Connie thought for a moment that he might be trying to hold her back, as if she couldn’t see the danger with her own eyes. But there wasn’t time for anger or argument. She grabbed his hand instead, and when they ran forward, they did it together.

Steven prepared his shield and Connie her sword, but it was Stevonnie who tossed the shield into Jasper’s feet, and Stevonnie’s careful hand guiding the sword under Amethyst’s gem to drive it up out of her crushing grasp.

Jasper grit her teeth. “Is fusion all you have to fight with? You saw how pathetic she was without it, and lowered yourself to fuse with a human?”

Steven and Connie were united in righteous anger, but they kept their tongue until Amethyst was safe in their hand. They looked her over for cracks and gave her a healing kiss just in case before setting her on the sand behind them. “Fighting alone is so much more pathetic than losing, Jasper. And considering what you brought with you, I think you know that.”

Jasper’s eyes bulged. “You think I need  _ anyone _ else to beat a freak like you?” She rushed them. “Don’t make me laugh!”

Jasper’s head drove forward again, but a glittering shield appeared to stop her helmet dead with a thunderous crash that buzzed deep in their bones. Stevonnie lashed out with their sword again, this time striking home on Jasper’s chest, and she barely managed to stumble back, eyes wild. 

Jasper was strong enough to survive one blow, but even one drove her beyond reason. She spun herself up and raced forward, and when she fell upon them she was like lightning. Everything was a hail of blows. For an immeasurable moment, it was all they could do to block. Shield and sword caught the worst of it, her helmet and her kicks that would shatter gem or bone, but Stevonnie was forced to take the weaker hits to their arms and legs. They didn’t dare move and risk leaving Amethyst open.

But eventually their moment came. Jasper wound up too hard, rearing back to deliver a blow to shatter their defenses, and for a split second her chest was open. They lashed out with a kick that knocked her onto her back, and before she could react they were upon her.

The sword drove down through her chest, and it was over. Even then, she struggled a moment before her body fell slack. The last look on her face before she burst wasn’t even defeat. It was nothing but misery and hate.

Stevonnie panted, leaning for a moment on their planted sword. They kissed along their arms and touched their lips to transfer more healing kisses to their legs and body. New aches faded into nothing before they could darken into bruises. They picked up Jasper’s gem and sat down next to Amethyst before considering the orange gem in their hand.

_ I could break her,  _ they thought.

It wouldn’t be hard. It wouldn’t be anything she wouldn’t have done to them. If they had been ten seconds later, she  _ would _ have done it to Amethyst. They raised their thumbnail to their mouth, and they weren’t sure if that was from Steven or Connie or something that only came from the two of them being together. Was it right to kill someone if they would have killed you? Even if you had another option?

The thought of her gem cracking between their fingers sent a shudder up their spine. “Nothing good would come out of it. And we have to be better than them. We can’t.” Instead, their fingers cupped safely around the gem, and Jasper was bubbled away. Maybe it was an excuse. Cowardice. An unwillingness to do what needed to be done.

Maybe other gems would have shattered. Maybe other gems would have cracked, to keep her weaker. But Jasper’s little triangle of a gem surrounded in a bubble of pink felt so much righter than any of that - not when they didn’t need to break her to protect themselves, or to protect others.

Stevonnie rested, and they let themselves fall apart.

They sat on either side of Amethyst’s gem, with Jasper safely in Steven’s lap. Slowly, their eyes raised, locked to the sound of waves against the shore. There were a lot of awkward feelings in the moment, and Connie fleetingly wished that it could have just been the beginnings of a new romance. Other girls her age were doing that, she supposed, wondering about their futures and finding people to kiss in the backseats of cars.

And there she was with Steven, wondering about the practicality of murder versus incarceration, and upset because he didn’t call about saving the world instead of skipping out on a movie date. Geez, she wished this could all be about a movie date.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I should have called.”

“ _ I’m _ sorry!” At the first sign of an apology, the reply poured out of her. “You were going through a lot. I should’ve been nicer about it.” Connie sighed and closed her eyes. It all felt silly now, and despite her success in battle she couldn’t have felt any smaller. “This whole fight was stupid. We spent all this time acting like dumb kids instead of like the adults we nearly are.”

Steven shook his head. “Connie, I should have called. I  _ thought _ about calling, and I didn’t. When things got scary I went back to…”

As he trailed off, Connie reached out to touch his hand. It was warm against her own, soft and nice, and she had missed that. Why hadn’t she just reached out her hand a little sooner? Her voice was gentle. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”

He smiled weakly. “I went back to old habits, Connie. I went back to acting like who I used to be when I didn’t know humans. You weren’t someone I could call on and fight with. You were another person I had to protect.”

“Oh.” She flicked her eyes away, down to Amethyst between them in the sand. “I guess you were raised to protect people, not as a regular foot soldier.”

“But that was wrong,” he said, squeezing her hand. “You’re my partner and I shouldn’t look down on humans either way. You’re clever and you know how to fight and you’re nice. I won’t forget about that again.”

“Well, I wasn’t acting like it this week. We’re fighting a war, not doing a group project, but I was acting like a stupid kid.” Her free hand reached out to cradle Amethyst and she sighed. “Maybe if we hadn’t been such a mess we could have fused earlier and stopped this from happening.”

“To be fair, I’ve watched Amethyst get poofed, like, five times in one day.” He laughed a little, and reached out to take her from Connie’s hands as it turned into a sigh. “Amethyst said finding out I was a Diamond was the best thing that ever happened to her. If she thought I was a quartz like she was… she would have spent all her time with me hating that I was stronger with her. With me as a Diamond she doesn’t have to compare.”

Connie frowned. “That’s awful.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “Maybe if I was a quartz, we could have all been friends. They could have been more like guardians, less like subordinates. I… well. I guess it doesn’t matter, right?”

“You deserve friends.”

His eyes found hers again. “Yeah, well. I’m sorry for not treating the one I have really well. Even if you couldn’t fight, you could be there in other ways. It’s not just about the war with us, not like with the gems. I’m not used to that, but I promise I’ll get better.”

She felt tears sting the corner of her eyes and blinked them away quickly before they could fall. “Thanks, Steven. I’m really happy to be your friend. I’d be here even if all the creepy alien stuff didn’t happen.”

Their eyes lowered to Jasper’s bubble and Steven said, “Speaking of magic stuff, I guess we just wrapped it up.”

That was so much easier than all the feelings talk. Connie narrowed her eyes, determined as he put her hand on the bubble. “Oh, no. This isn’t the end, Steven. This is proof of concept.” 

He blinked. “Proof of what?”

“We can  _ really _ make a change,” she said as Amethyst began to glow between them. “We’re not gems. We don’t have forever to wait. So let’s get started.”


	15. Action and Reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven and Connie decide it's time to take action.

“Mom, you remember Steven,” Connie said, gesturing to the boy in the doorway. “We’re just gonna talk about gem stuff, so we’re heading up to my room and-”

“Door open,” Priyanka said coolly, eyes flicking up from her reports. “But have a nice time.”

Connie grinned. ‘It’s really more of a door-closed kind of talk.”

Priyanka gave her a withering look. “That’s a shame,” she remarked, “because this is a door-open kind of home.”

Connie glared back. “Steven has his own home, you know. His own car. We’ve spent loads of time unsupervised to do whatever we want to do.”

“I will not go upstairs. I will not bother you. I will not kick him out.” Her eyes met Connie’s sternly. “I’m asking you not to close the door. One rule. I think I’m being fair.”

“But I’m…” Connie stopped herself and sighed. “You’re right. That’s fair. We’ll keep the door open. Thank you for compromising.”

“You’re welcome, honey,” she said and nodded Steven’s way. “Good to see you too. Let me know if you get hungry.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed with a nod. “Thank you for the hospitality. I appreciate it.”

They rushed up the stairs without another word. Steven was surprised to find Connie’s room lit with gentle fairy lights, the room a warm purple as she dragged out a chair and pushed it his way before hopping into her lofted bed.

“Sorry if I caused any trouble between you and your mom,” he said as he settled into the desk chair. “Next time I can try to find somewhere else.”

Connie shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. Having friends over is… I mean, it’s new. We’re still figuring out the rules. It’s just weird to figure out what’s fair to make rules about when I’m nearly eighteen and planning on signing up for a space war.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Well, I wanted to talk about Jasper and about what you said last time. How we need to get started.”

She let her legs dangle over the edge of the bed. “Have you talked to the gems about it yet?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t know if they’re going to understand. They... gems don’t change, Connie. They don’t make changes. At least, they don’t do it nearly as easy or fast as people do. The stuff we’re talking about is so against their nature that I don’t know if they’d even listen.”

“They do prefer to be on defense,” Connie murmured. “Even if they managed to get an army, I still don’t think they’d head to Homeworld to take on the Diamonds, not unless something forced their hand.”

“But we would. We’re not gems, and I think there might be some gem stuff that needs human eyes.” Steven shut his own with a frown. “Like the way they treat bubbled gems. Something about it just doesn’t feel--.”

“There’s no plan,” Connie interrupted. Her face burned a little at the disgruntled look he sent her. “Sorry. I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know enough about bubbling, but I’ve been thinking of it as prison. It’s definitely better than killing - shattering, I guess - but is it right to leave someone trapped alone forever?”

Steven thought about it. “Bubbled gems don’t know time is moving,” he said. “I talked to Peridot about it. Everything freezes for them, so when they come out it’s as if they’ve just been poofed.”

“Well, it’s not inhumane, at least,” Connie muttered. “We know from Lapis that gems don’t enjoy solitary confinement, even if they hold up better than humans do. That was my biggest worry.”

Steven groaned, idly spinning in the desk chair. “Maybe it isn’t torture, but it still doesn’t feel  _ right. _ Like you said - there’s no plan. And if you don’t ever plan to let them go, isn’t that basically the same as killing them?”

Connie frowned. “I definitely wouldn’t call it ethical. It’s wrong to keep them locked away forever. But what can we do about it? If we let Jasper out, she’s just going to try to kill us again. We can’t stab her every hour.” She raised an eyebrow. “I feel like an infinite stabbing machine is way less ethical than being bubbled.”

Steven jittered, carefully watching the walls instead of Connie. He knew what the answer was, but it was far easier said than done. It was almost ridiculous to say it. “If we end the rebellion, we can pop the bubble.” He stopped spinning and looked up at her. “Once we finish the war, we’ll have the resources of an entire empire at our fingertips. Even if Jasper won’t switch to the winning team right away, we could find or make better ways to lock her up - ways where she could learn to be a better person and stop hurting people.”

“So that’s the plan?” Connie raised an eyebrow. “We just have to take down an empire that spans the galaxy and everything else’ll work out fine?”

He laughed. It really was ridiculous. “Easy, right?”

She scoffed. “Not really, but…” She sighed, sinking back to her pillows. “You’re right. We can’t keep gems prisoners forever, and we can’t just hope that some miracle cure will fix the corrupted gems. I don’t want to start a war, but we’re too far in now. Fighting back against the empire is the only way we can change things.”

Steven nodded. “It’s not just Jasper, either. There’s a bubbled gem inside Lion’s mane and I didn’t put it there. As far as I know, no one can get inside except for me.” He paused, his hand coming down over his belly. “So if there’s a pink bubble in Lion’s mane, that has to mean…”

Connie’s eyes widened in horror. “There’s been a gem trapped in Lion’s mane for at least as long as you’ve been alive. Have you asked the gems about it?”

He shook his head. “What if they know her? What if there’s some huge thing about why Mom bubbled her in the first place? I don’t think we can risk whatever happened being easy to handle. They’re barely holding together with the changes we’re pushing them into  _ now. _ Who knows what bringing a new mystery gem into it would do?”

“Yeah. For a bunch of solar-powered robots, they sure are drama queens.” Connie propped her face up on her chin. “Anyone else we’re forgetting?”

Steven shrugged. “The rubies, I guess.”

She cocked her head. “Rubies? Are they more casualties from the war or something?”

Steven cringed and shook his head. “Garnet says the corruption blast hit everyone - Crystal and Homeworld gems both. No one made it out uncorrupted except for the few under mom’s shield.”

“Then who-”

“Don’t get mad.”

Connie growled, sitting up to glare down at him. “How funny. I’m already getting there.”

“I just found out!” he protested. “A bunch of Rubies showed up at the barn, but Lapis poofed them all before anything happened. I didn’t even find out until after it all happened.”

She pouted. “When’d you find out?”

“Yesterday,” he said. “From Peridot. I was checking on the corrupted gems and Jasper and there were a bunch of new green bubbles from her.”

“That’s fair.” She sighed, falling back into her pillowy nest as her temper cooled. “Sorry I got cranky.”

“It’s okay. I get why.” He laughed awkwardly. “But there’s bad news there to catch you up on. Lapis poofed them because she found out they were looking for Jasper, but then she ran off before anyone could stop her. She said she wanted nothing to do with the fight between Homeworld and the Crystal Gems ever again. Nobody knows where she went.”

“There goes our powerhouse,” Connie groaned. “Any good news?”

Steven grinned. “Well, the rubies didn’t walk here. They came in a ship.”

Connie bolted upright. “A ship? A  _ space _ ship? A  _ faster-than-light _ spaceship?”

He laughed. Her excitement was highly contagious. “Uh-huh! That’s why I came to talk to you. It’s like the gems don’t even care that we just got access to space travel!”

“That’s changed a lot!” Connie laughed. She jumped down, pacing the tiny bit of floor space between Steven and her bed. “Oh my gosh. That really changes what we can do next. Well, okay, let’s go over our assets first. We lost Lapis, but we still have plenty on our side, right?”

“Maybe, but we’ll have to talk to the gems about it.” Steven frowned. “Do you think they’ll listen to us?”

She took his hands. “Steven, they decided a long time ago that you were going to be their leader. If you’re not going to lead the way they expected, well, that’s on them. They forced this destiny on you. Now you get to choose what to do with it.”

“You’re right.” He squeezed her hands back and smiled. “Thanks, Connie.” He looked around her room for a moment. “You know, we’ve been talking about nothing but gem stuff for a while, and I don’t know what more we can do without the others. Would you maybe want to do something else? You know. As long as I’m here.”

Connie raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

He glanced at her laptop. “Hang out. Play some video games. Maybe watch some Tubetube.”

She laughed. “What, like we’re normal teenagers? Do you wanna shoot some ClikToks too?”

“I just…” He swallowed, lowering his gaze. “I feel like this might be one of the last chances we get to do stuff like this together. I want to savor it before everything goes wrong, before it gets really bad.”

“Oh.” She looked down at her own hands. “I… yeah. I guess we should.”

They did their best to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

They met up the next day in the temple. Peridot, now an honorary Crystal Gem, took only the briefest moment to side-eye Connie before settling down on the floor, and with that they started with the simplest and uncontroversial things - assets.

“What we have so far,” Steven began, “is some old gem tech-”

“And most of it won’t communicate with the newer stuff,” Peridot leapt in. “It’s mostly pretty useless, even with my engineering skills.”

“And you’re an asset,” Steven said with a smile, and bit back a laugh as Peridot preened under the praise. “We also have a faster-than-light gem ship, and the Crystal Gems.”

“And me,” Connie chirped.

“He already said the Crystal Gems.” Garnet’s hand gently ruffled her hair. ”That includes you.”

Connie flushed, and Steven felt his heart skip a beat at her casual acceptance into the group. “Okay, so our goal is to save Earth and stop Homeworld. There’s no way that we’d ever be able to stop them by force, not with four and a half gems and two humans. There’s just too many of them and too few of us. So, the big plan is to get me into power as Pink Diamond.”

“See, that’s where I get confused,” Amethyst said. “I know that’s been the plan for a while, but it’s been sounding like you don’t wanna.”

Steven shook his head. “We can think about what I want after the war is over. Right now, we have to do what’s best for Earth. With a force this small, I don’t think we can hope to start a revolution.”

Connie shook her head. “Gems are even more resistant to change than humans. Who knows how long it’ll take to start a grassroots revolution - if one could even exist at all. Even during the rebellion, it looks like only a handful of gems defected. And that was with a clear, strong leader who could secretly help as one of the diamonds.”

“We were never especially numerous,” Pearl confessed. “Gems that spent time on Earth seeing the beauty, what was being taken - they could be turned in a few months. No amount of word of mouth seemed to do much. Ships from Homeworld only brought enemies, never new allies.”

“If gems can’t be swayed by propaganda, I can’t see how we’d manage anything that way,” Connie mumbled. “I’m not a fan of just swapping one monarch for another, but we’re not playing by human rules.”

“Humans will change on their own, but gems almost never change without someone above them telling them to.” Steven nodded solemnly, and though all of him wanted to slump under the thought of it, he kept his back straight. “The best path we have is for me to get into power and make change from the top. Hopefully, eventually, gems will learn to change for themselves like humans do.”

“We need information,” Garnet said. “My powers won’t work in a vacuum--too many possibilities to consider. If we’re thinking about making a stand, we can’t go in blind. But Peridot-”

“I told you everything I know!’ she squawked indignantly. ‘I wasn’t exactly high ranking! Diamonds didn’t come into the Kindergartens to hand out secrets and tell us their big plans for the empire! And ever since  _ you _ rebelled, there’s been passwords and protections on all the software! I guess I could have hacked into one, but I didn’t want to get shattered.”

Steven cocked his head. “But you  _ could _ have hacked a Diamond console?” Steven asked. She nodded, and he turned to Pearl. “I know the moonbase has been disconnected from everything, but is there anywhere else you went with Mom that might still be a part of their system?”

“And pick somewhere without a whole army, P,” Amethyst muttered. “I don’t wanna get my ass kicked anymore.”

She thought, her lips pursed. “It’s hard to say after all this time. My first thought would be the Zoo, but I have no idea if Blue would have maintained it for all these years.”

“It was still on our maps!” Peridot chimed eagerly. “There’s no indication that it’s been shut down. I never looked into it, but retired bases are usually grayed out. I don’t think the Zoo was.”

Connie blinked. “What even is the Zoo? Is it like ones on Earth - places to keep animals? It’s got to be some kind of research lab or something. It’s not like gems have tourism.” She laughed.

“It’s actually full of... humans,” Pearl said, her voice hesitant. “Blue Diamond noticed Pink’s fascination with them and made it as a gift. A place to keep Pink’s favorites intact when the biosphere was destroyed.”

Connie stiffened, and Steven could feel tension pour thickly into the room. “There are human beings kept in a zoo? As a  _ gift? _ ”

“I know it isn’t ri-” Pearl began, but Connie held up a hand.

Garnet gently rubbed her back. “It’s alright. Take your time.”

Steven looked down at the floor, searching for words and finding none. Before the war meant at least five thousand years. A group of humans who had missed out on most of history were locked up and far away and bred like animals among the stars.

“We can’t leave them,” Steven whispered, looking around at the assembled gems.”You understand why this is wrong, right? We can’t just…”

“No,” Pearl said firmly. “We can’t leave them. We won’t.”

“I can start gathering supplies,” Connie said. “Rations for me and Steven, any tools that might help with sneaking in. Peridot could help go through the ruby ship for anything they had. Maybe the two of us could be brought in as new humans, get access to where they have the captives…” Her eyes were far off, already deep in plans, already figuring out how to help. A knot wound tight in Steven’s gut as he watched.

Steven cleared his throat, clenched up tight with emotion, and put a hand on her back to bring her back to the present. “Connie, I know you’ve got college coming up soon. We could be gone for weeks. Months, even, if the ship isn’t fast. You shouldn’t fall behind in your own life. The rest of us can handle it on our own.”

She looked puzzled for a moment. “College?” Then something clicked, and she laughed. “Steven, my plans for college don't matter anymore. There are  _ human beings _ trapped in a zoo in space, humans who have never seen their own planet. We’re planning a coup the size of the galaxy. Do you really think I would ignore all that to go take Calculus 102 at the community college up the highway?” She shook her head. “My only plan was to get a degree in political science so I could make a difference in the world. What bigger difference could I make than this?”

“Still,” he pressed. “You have a chance for a normal life if you want it. No one’s going to hold it against you if you want to stay on Earth. I know I’d want to if I could.”

She shook her head, casting a quick smile to Garnet. “I’m a Crystal Gem, right?” she said, and though he could see the worry in her eyes, the anxiety in her shoulders, she looked back at him and nodded. “We’ve been preparing long enough. I’m ready for this. And I’m not going anywhere.”

The knot in his belly vanished, and Steven let out a sigh of relief. He looked around the group. “Okay then. Time to get specific. We’re infiltrating the Zoo. So let’s get planning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll see you next time for the Zoo!


	16. The Zoo [Part 1]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang raids the human zoo for information.

On the face of it, the plan was fairly simple. They were currently on course for the Zoo, and had called in transit to explain that they would be delivering two humans. Their lie had been accepted, so they were starting off on the right foot at least. Garnet would split - leaving Ruby and Sapphire to act out their former roles under the Diamond Authority. Sapphire would claim to be on an errand for Blue Diamond, and their rationale was that Earth’s destruction was imminent due to the Cluster.

“How big is the margin of error on the Cluster’s emergence?” Connie had asked before they left.

Peridot had shrugged and rolled her hand through the air. “Oh, Yellow Diamond will start getting suspicious in a decade or so.”

So they had time and the story checked out. Pearl would attempt to attend to Sapphire, should the Holly Blue running the Zoo be willing to allow her to tag along. If not, she would remain on the ship with Peridot and Amethyst - backup in case anything went wrong.

If Sapphire could manage it, she would find communications terminals and use a small headset to tell Steven and Connie the location of a terminal through their own hidden earpieces. Steven had his strength under control, so they hoped he’d be able to break any door down with hardly a problem, or even get authorization through his diamond.

Steven and Connie would use the small device Peridot had given them to plug into the data storage, transfer everything it could get, then make a mad dash to the ship and be home without Homeworld ever the wiser to the data breach. That one they had taken extra care with - the slim device was glued to Steven’s wrist, with fake skin on top to minimize any chance of losing it. They planned a quick in and out, ensuring little time for things to go wrong.

“Once we know where to find a big ship, we’ll make a second run to the Zoo,” Steven had promised. “We’ll rescue everyone so they can have a choice of where and how they want to live. No more human zoo - not ever again.”

Connie had nodded. “We have to play it smart. Rescuing everyone on our first run with a small ship just isn’t likely. We don’t even know how many humans they have. It could be hundreds just to maintain a non-incestuous breeding program.”

Steven had groaned, his face wrinkling with disgust. “Right. They’ll probably have one of those. Can we just… not think of that?”

“We can try,” she’d muttered. “The more we look into it, the more awful it’s going to be. We’re doing what we can. Let’s start there, and worry about all the messed up parts later.”

Thankfully, Connie was so delighted by the Ruby ship being bigger on the inside that she didn’t have much time to talk about the horrors of the Zoo. Quite a lot of the trip was spent with her and Peridot gushing over the transdimensional physics as they zoomed through the endless black. Steven stood with his guardians, looking around at the three of them. “Are you guys going to be okay?”

“Dude, I’m excited!” Amethyst said eagerly, rocking forward in her chair. “I want to see what the other Amethysts look like. And it’s not like I’ve got a job to do while I’m there, as long as you don’t mess it up.”

“I’m just…” Steven sighed, sinking to the floor of the ship as he thought about what laid ahead. “I know Homeworld isn’t nice to people who don’t fit in boxes, and I know you guys left all of that behind. I don’t want to force you to go back.”

“It’s only for a short while,” Pearl said, trying her best to sound cheerful. “What’s a day or two of servitude next to thousands of years free? I’ll be alright, Steven.”

“We’re saving people,” Garnet said, her arms crossed. “Humans and gems are in danger and we’re getting them out. That’s what it means to be a Crystal Gem.”

“Good to hear. Connie and me will be fast, okay? In and out before they know what hit them.” He smiled.

“As long as nothing goes wrong, you mean,” Amethyst pointed out. “Because we might have to blow the whole place up, or you might get stuck somewhere, or Ruby could blow our cover-”

“Thank you, Amethyst,” Pearl said curtly. “I think that’s plenty of speculation for now. How about we enjoy our flight?”

But there was no way he could enjoy it, not with all the risks of failure drawing ahead. He wasn’t particularly interested in science, even when Connie tried to talk to him about it, and he could have sworn he heard her mutter a pouty “himbo” that she refused to repeat when pressed. 

But eventually they pulled up to the space station, huge and pink in a lazy orbit around a nearby planet, and Garnet unfused.

Sapphire nodded to Steven and Connie. “The less the two of you say, the better this will go. No gem will look too closely as long as you’re quiet, so hold your tongues and go along without protest until I’ve sent along the signal.”

“Yes ma’am,” Connie agreed, and Steven nodded beside her.

They did their best to ignore the nerves on everyone’s faces. Peridot and Amethyst carefully pressed themselves against the walls of the ship, out of eyeshot from the door as the rest of the team shuffled out. The corridors of the zoo were simple - clean and sleek with less decoration than Steven had expected.

They were greeted by a tall gem, surprisingly thick considering she was made for administration instead of the battlefield. Behind her were two Amethysts, both of whom looked quite different from their friend still on the ship. Steven was surprised to see so much body diversity among them after the nearly identical Rubies they had faced.

Holly Blue beamed as she stepped ahead of her guards, sweeping her hands wide. Her voice was coated with pretension and smugness. “Oh, _ Sapph_ire. What an _ honor _ to have you at our outpost!”

“Yes, it is,” Sapphire agreed. Her voice was serene but clipped, and any unsteadiness there had been on the ship was gone now. “I trust the humans we’re delivering will be treated with the utmost care? I hand-selected them myself.”

“Oh, of _ course!” _Her eyes trailed over Steven and Connie, and he barely restrained a shudder at the uncanny feeling of being sized up like a puppy at a dog show. She chuckled as she looked to Sapphire once again. “They are lovely specimens. We’ve researched humans for thousands of years, and I assure you their health and well-being will be of the utmost importance.”

Then she bellowed, wheeling on the Amethysts behind her so suddenly everyone jumped. “Take them away! Her Clarity should not suffer their organic stench any longer!”

“R-right!” The Amethyst stumbled forward and rather than a painful grip, he was surprised to find the hand firmly, but kindly, on his shoulder. Her voice was still gravelly, still brusque, but he was surprised not to be shoved around. “Come on, little dude. Let’s get you processed.”

Connie was much the same, looking just as surprised as her Amethyst guided her by the shoulder instead of pushing. He only got to see it for a moment as her expression quickly turned to horror. Holly Blue behind them was laughing, “We’ve even developed a robust breeding program! We call it the Choosening, and the humans just love it. We could run one today, if you like.”

Although Sapphire began to protest it wasn’t necessary, the conversation was cut off as doors hissed closed behind them. A moment later and they finally were pushed, the couple of Amethysts laughing “In you go!” as they were shoved onto a conveyor belt. Everything was cast in pink, and they scrambled to their feet as quickly as they could. 

Still there was no time to get their bearings, as teal cylinders swept in. Four of them rushed to Steven, and another four to Connie, who had the chance to muse only, “They look like Peridot’s limb extender fingers,” before hissing at a sudden flash of light.

Steven did the same, wincing at the camera’s flash and looking into the shot of his own face. Gem text flashed on the screen, and he only caught a few gem words which he guessed were his height, weight and sex before the screen collapsed away. More cylinders zoomed at his face, and with a frustrated growl he snagged them and crushed them in his hand.

“Cut it out,” he snapped, and when he glanced back he saw them prodding at Connie, taking pictures of her teeth.

“Probably figuring out our age and health,” Connie said, rubbing at her cheeks. “You have to let them go. Getting processed is part of the plan.”

He grimaced. “Right.” Another set of cylinders rushed in, and this time he begrudgingly allowed them to poke and prod.

He did his best to keep his hands still as they went about their business. Everything was overwhelming and obnoxious. When he heard a startled grunt from Connie, his heartrate spiked. Thankfully, it was just that the odd little fingers had gone for her shoes and socks, knocking her to the ground.

And then they went for her shirt.

He yelped, closing his eyes tight only to find himself subject to the same shoe tugging. When they grabbed at his shirt, he decided to retain some dignity, undressing himself each time they pulled at a new article of clothing. “Please don’t look,” he groaned.

“I’m not looking!” she squeaked. “But all I’ve got left is underwear. They even took my bra.” Almost impressed she remarked, “Little robot fingers got the hooks right away.”

A loud thud came from ahead, and at the risk of seeing Connie with too little clothes, he decided their lives were more valuable. Ahead, an odd blue rectangle slammed against the track again and again. He stumbled back out of instinct, his back bumping against her front, and she grabbed his shoulders to steady him. 

Steven was about to bubble them both from whatever was ahead when he was distracted yet again by the bitter taste of disinfectant filling his mouth. He choked, and she did the same as she started pushing him forward.

“They aren’t going to hurt us,” she wheezed. “It’ll be okay.”

To be honest, he wasn’t really sure how right she was about that, but there wasn’t much of a choice. He stepped forward, and the rectangle slammed down with a cold rush of air and the soft touch of fabric. When it lifted he found himself in an odd loincloth and vest, a brown cord holding it all together. He was immediately uncomfortable with the loincloth, and incredibly grateful they hadn’t taken his boxers. After another slam, he looked back to see Connie clothed just the same.

They both yelped at the same time as a sudden, sharp pinch clamped down on either ear. Pink and purple earrings dangled, the weight new and odd as he turned his head this way and that. Steven wrinkled his nose. “Not really the way I was planning on piercing my ears.”

“Steven!” Connie cried. For a moment, he thought her horror was from the end of the conveyor belt, depositing them into a chill metal box. But then he noticed her hands clutched over her ears, and he had the realization just as she said it: “They took our communicators!”

He had a brief moment to feel the shock, but the Zoo seemed completely unwilling to provide even a single moment to process his feelings. The room was slammed with water, quickly rising over their heads, and the floor opened up beneath.

They plummeted down with muffled screams, thrashing in the tube of water on instinct. Like a water slide, he felt himself fall through it. He was tugged by gravity, his stomach twisting at the feel of a drop, beforecrashing into the pool below. He kicked to the surface, and found Connie breaking for air beside him. 

She immediately followed her breath with a very loud, very furious curse word, which was more than enough to let him know she was alright. He walked onto shore with a couple muttered curses of his own. “They must have gotten the headsets when they were stripping us! Or putting the clothes on. Or the earrings.” He flopped on the beach, and tried not to think of how fake the sky overhead looked. “I can’t believe I didn't even notice.”

“Same,” she muttered, hauling herself up beside him. Connie stretched out in the sand, breathing heavy. “We’ll just have to keep the plan going without guidance. We can look for an exit and search the-”

“New people?” came a voice behind them, soft and sweet and kind, but it didn’t stop them both from cursing again, and scrambling to their feet to face it. The man was brown skinned and wide-eyed, with a sweet smile that was somehow reminiscent of a kitten. “Hello! I’ve never seen just _ two _ new people before.”

He fumbled to put the pieces together. “You’ve met new people?”

“Humans age and die,” Connie mumbled beside him. “They have to introduce new people to the group. Zoos on Earth will take babies to handraise for a number of reasons. I bet they do the same things here and drop in new generations of humans in batches.”

“This is so uncomfortably real.” Steven cringed. “Could you be just a little less knowledgable?”

“You have no idea how much I’m not saying,” she snapped. Then, with a smile, she held out her hand to the man. “I’m Connie and we’re from Earth! The wild. The, uh, not here.”

Her hand was met with a high five slap, and the man laughed. “I am Wy-Six! We have heard about humans from the Earth, but that was long ago! You will have to tell us stories about your home!”

“I’m Steven.” He matched Wy-Six’s slap of the hand as he eyed the humans beyond, watching them start to creep out from the bushes and trees. “We’re not going to be here long. You can go back to whatever you were doing.”

But they were already being surrounded by silly, smiley people. A blond woman had her fingers in Connie’s hair, gasping with delight as she played with the strands. “It’s so long, and so straight! I wish to braid it.”

“Oh, no,” Connie said with a nervous laugh, stepping back. She held up her hands to the approaching group of zoomans. “I’m really just trying to get out of here, not make friends, or think about the implications over this biodiversity that’s been maintained for thousands of years in a shockingly small population.”

And yet she was failing at both. Steven slung his arm over her shoulders with a grin, and decided to take care of two problems in a single swoop. “How about I go look around our new home, and you can hang out here and learn about the culture? I think Connie would love to have her hair braided. She doesn’t know anything about braids.”

“I know lots about braids,” she said with a tight smile up at him. “And I don’t know why we wouldn’t explore _ together. _”

“Because every time you say something about biodiversity I get one step closer to totally losing it,” he said through his own gritted, grinning teeth. “If we’re going to get through this, I need a break from the implications, and I’m not gonna think of this stuff without you around.”

“Himbo,” she muttered, and he definitely heard it that time.

“Himbos are hot. I’ll take it.” Connie squeaked indignantly, and he pushed her into the eager group of zoomans. “See you later! Come on, Wy-Six. Can you show me where the edge of your world is?”

As Connie vanished into the crowd, Wy-Six seemed happy to start showing him around. He was surprised to find the nearest wall around a twenty minute walk away, though he couldn’t be sure if he was measuring time right, especially with all the distractions of his new environment. The grass was softer under his bare feet than any natural grass he had ever stepped on. The bark on the trees wasn’t scratchy in the slightest - smooth to the touch. Even the rocks were smooth here, and pressing against them, they seemed to have a little bit of give.

“Bet you guys never get hurt, huh?” he murmured.

“Hurt? Jay-Ten said that there is a legend that someone was ‘hurt’ once, and they were carried away when the walls parted. But that was just a story.” He leaned in to whisper, “I do not think it was a true story, Ste-Von.”

He tried to think about that like Connie would. If they never got hurt, it could mean a lot of things. Everything was soft, but he’d gotten bruises just from rolling the wrong way in bed. So either they were genetically modified to never get hurt, or something else. He tried to figure it out. “What do you call it if you bite your tongue? Or trip?”

“You get an Ouch!” he said, and seemed delighted just to know the answer.

“Okay, so you guys feel pain but you’re not getting _ hurt _. I mean, I guess it makes sense. The whole world is padded.” He hummed, half-pleased to have figured it out, and half-confused as to what to do with the information, when something finally clicked. “Hey, do you know where the wall opened up?”

Their earrings made a soft ping, and a voice filled Steven’s ears: _ You must be hungry now. It is time for the designated eating period! _

“Come! It is time for food.” Wy-Six laughed, pointing beyond them. “The legend happened there, with the odd pink wall, but it is not as good as food.”

Steven did his best to remember landmarks in the direction he pointed, and followed along.

Wy-Six was pleased to announce that the fruit was purple today as they seemed to grow from nothing on the trees, and they plucked them to eat on the way back to the rest of the zoomans. It was hardly the worst thing he had ever eaten, but it was fairly bland, and oddly savory. Wy-Six assured him that sometimes the fruit was red, and it was _ very _ sweet.

As they reached the rest of the group he stifled a laugh at the sight of Connie surrounded by a group of zoomans, turning her hair into dozens of tiny braids. One of them, looking patiently indulgent, kept pushing Connie’s hands and the fruit within them up. They seemed to prefer Connie’s mouth full of fruit than the endless inquisition she was surely on.

“Does the little voice plan your whole day?” Steven asked.

Another zooman, Eye-Seven, nodded eagerly. “The little voice always has something for us to do. She keeps us very busy, and has lots of games to play, and wishes us goodnight.”

Steven chewed thoughtfully. “And you all go to sleep at the same time, huh?”

They did - just like they all played at the same time in the same way. When their earrings spoke, they followed the voice’s instructions without question. It was awkwardly childish, and the only thing that kept his own temper in check was watching the furious expression on Connie’s face as she crossed her arms and refused to reach for the sky, despite the prodding from the earrings and the other zoomans.

They all smelled the roses together, and when Steven casually asked a zooman if he had to, she simply looked confused and tucked a few flowers into his hair, insisting that it was very nice to smell flowers, and she couldn’t think of why he wouldn’t want to. When it was bath time, he stayed at the edge of the pool and waited for Connie to wiggle free of her new friends.

The pool had an odd cleanser scent, and was shallow and clear. Connie slunk to him in the water, her eyes shifting back to the other zoomans as she came to his side. “Did you find a way out?”

He nodded. “There’s a spot where the wall opens. Someone came in through it the last time someone got hurt. All the doors we’ve been through look really sturdy, but I might be able to get them open. It’s a good starting point, at least.”

“I can give you a boost,” she said, and carefully raised her hands in the crystal clear water. Heavy grey stones sat in her palms, beautifully smooth like river stones. “You-Twelve said to be careful with the hard rocks in the pool. It’s the only thing I’ve found that’s actually useful in getting us out.”

He blinked. “Rocks?”

“I know a little about rock tools. I don’t think I could make a real weapon, but I can make a wedge,” she explained, and clicked them together softly beneath the clear water. “You can pound it into the crack in the door, and once it’s wide enough you can use your hands to pull it the rest of the way open.”

“We could fuse, too. Stevonnie’s stronger than me,” he mused. “But that’s all you found out? Haven’t you been talking all day?”

“It’s the only _ useful _ thing I found out!” she protested. “They don’t know much of anything. I found out plenty of other stuff. I found out how they raise babies and how the Choosening works and the different foods they get. I’m pretty sure this is a single enclosure and there’s at least one more.” She settled even lower in the water, her lips barely above the surface. “But I don’t think any of that is going to get us out of here.”

“Oh, great, the Choosening. Did you find out your odds of being choosened with your himbo?” he teased.

She made a face at him. “I’m _ sorry _I called you a himbo, okay? And I actually did find out. It’s zero.” He was sure he looked startled as her grin grew bigger and she explained, “We’re not gonna be a part of it. Everyone here has just reached adulthood and we’re not.”

He shook his head. “But I’m eighteen?”

“Eighteen is just the age we graduate from high school. It’s culture, which they don’t have much of” she said with a shake of her head. “Biologically, eighteen doesn’t mean anything. Everyone in here is twenty five cycles, and I’ll bet cycles are tied to earth years. I’m guessing it’s based on some kind of mental development, birth survival rates, who knows. I just know that it won’t be _ us _.”

“That’s good news,” he sighed, leaning against the edge of the pool and letting his legs float.

“Mmmhmm. I’m not enjoying being treated like a kid, but it’s better than being asked to make one.”

Steven cocked his head as he thought about it for a moment, realizing that he had seen no children, no pregnancies, nothing to indicate that there were anything but adults here at all. “Huh,” he said to himself. “I guess they never have kids on accident, huh?”

Connie looked at him flatly, clearly restraining her temper once again. “Do you want to think of the implications of that, or do you just want to focus on the fact that we won’t be Choosened, which means we have a _ perfect _ opportunity to escape tonight?”

“Con-nie!” You-Twelve gasped, and Connie squealed as she was picked up by the other woman. The rocks fell to their feet, clicking against the other stones at the bottom. “You had the hard rocks! I told you to be careful!”

“I dropped the rocks,” she said, glaring up at her captor. “Now you can drop _ me, _ right? I was just showing Steven the-”

“Con-nie, you talk too much. Come learn to braid Em-Five’s hair!”

Connie groaned as she was once again dragged off to the endless hair braiding, and Steven smuggled the rocks she dropped into a nearby bush before doing his best to mingle with the others.

Night fell like a lightswitch later on, and as the zoomans napped they quickly made their way to the bush. With a few careful slams of her rocks, Connie turned one of the large, round stones into a dull wedge. She didn’t dare risk flattening the other side, in case it weakened or cracked. By the time they had finished, their earrings softly ‘woke’ them with an invitation to watch the Choosening.

“Oh, no,” Connie muttered, cradling her wedge to her chest with one arm. “We’ll miss out on the creepy breeding ceremony. Oh well, can’t be helped, let’s go, Steven.”

She snagged his hand to head for the door, but he planted his feet as an idea sprung into his mind. “I know you’re usually the planner, but I think I’ve got something.”

“Like what?” she asked suspiciously.

He grinned. “What if I told you we could mess up the unethical breeding program _ and _ cause a distraction at the same time?”

Steven could barely hold back a laugh as he watched realization and defeat dawn in her eyes in equal measure. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

After he’d explained his idea, Connie’s only quibble with the plan was that it was embarrassing, and only agreed on the condition that they kept that part of the plan secret from the rest of the gems. Which was fine, because it _ was _ a very embarrassing plan, really. Him and Connie. Kissing. That was just… well, it was usually awkward in one way or another.

But maybe it wasn’t really awkward, because they’d gone on a date on his birthday, and even though that was their only date it probably still counted as dating. Maybe. But they hadn’t really kissed - not since all the problems with Pearl, and that had been for healing.

He looked down at the pretty way the zoomans had braided flowers into her hair and felt a lump growing in his throat. Here they were, saying they were going to kiss as part of their plan for saving the universe. He kind of wished he hadn’t thought of it at all, though it’d been funny at the time. It seemed almost like a funny bit of revenge for her calling him a himbo. But now, Steven just kind of wished that there could be some part of his life that wasn’t swallowed up with being a superhero.

He wished he could take her aside, against one of the oddly soft trees, and kiss her without an excuse. He would thank her for fighting so hard, thank her for being there, and promise her that kissing her was more than a means to an end. Maybe he could confess his love somehow, and assure her that they both deserved each other without having to say that it was really about saving the universe.

He just wasn’t entirely sure that was true.

The Choosening was already underway and when his feet stumbled from the thought that he would once again be kissing her for an awful reason, Connie's hand squeezed his tight. She led him into the circle of baffled zoomans, then looked up at him expectantly. He awkwardly cleared his throat.

“C-Connie and I have decided to be Choosened,” he said, struggling to find the words that had suddenly fallen away from him. Before he’d thought about this little plan, it had seemed so simple. He swallowed nerves. “That’s how it works on Earth, so we wanted to tell you that, um, you have a choice.” He swallowed again. “No one can make you… I mean… who you love is your choice.”

Wy-Six stepped into the circle, laughing as he clapped Steven warmly on the back. “Ste-von! You are so silly! Please, leave the circle. You and Connie will have a Choosening in a few cycles.”

He stopped his back clapping to instead reach for Connie’s hand, and Steven stepped in front of her. He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling a bit bolder now. “No, we _ won’t. _ I-I don’t really get all the stuff Connie’s been saying about why this place is bad. Maybe it’s not that bad to have someone choose your food, or schedule your day, but it doesn’t feel right! And it _ definitely _ doesn’t feel right to tell everyone who they’re allowed to love!”

Wy-Six laughed again. “I do not understand.”

Connie’s arms wrapped around his, her head leaning with a surprising affection against his shoulder as she stood beside him. “On Earth, where we live, people get to choose who they want to be with,” she said. “And you can choose whoever you want, whenever you want. The only little voice you listen to is the one in your head.”

Yu-Twelve mumbled, not to them, but to the person beside her, “You could Choosen anyone you like?”

Connie laughed, answering anyway. “Anyone! Even someone who you thought was stuck-up and annoying, but slowly got to know them and grow with them.” Her hand reached up to his chin with a little chuckle, angling his face towards hers. “And maybe you’ll think someone like that might be worth kissing just because you think you’re growing into people who really, really mesh. You can choose that.”

“What is kissing?” Wy-Six asked.

“It’s-” Connie began.

“Showing’s better,” he said with a soft laugh. “I think they’re getting sick of us talking.”

It was easy to kiss her, after all the times they’d kissed before. His mouth met Connie’s and a gasp went up from the surrounding zoomans. Not scared, but surprised. He felt her smile match his as his arms settled on her hips. Her hands came up to his chest, as they stood just with their lips held still together. 

He took a breath as they broke apart and started, “You can use your tongue to-”

She laughed, loving and warm as she shook her head. “I’m not Frenching you in front of a bunch of zoo people and possibly cameras.”

“Great point!” Steven spun around, grabbing her hand and dragging her from the circle. “See what else you guys can do with your mouths! It’s like a fun game.”

“Wait!” called a zooman as they started pairing off. “What if we all want to be with the same person?”

“Oh!” Connie said, and he had to drag her, stumbling behind as she shouted at the zoomans they were leaving behind. “I guess you’ll have to see who can scream the loudest. Winner gets to kiss!”

As they rushed to the exit, in the direction Wy-Six had pointed him earlier, the competitive shrieks of the zoomans drowned out any noise they could make. They laughed as they sprinted to the wall, and it was short work to find the pink door. The shouts of the zoomans beyond were morphing slowly into more of a cacophony - competitiveness, anger, excitement, heartbreak - which built more with every moment.

“We should fuse,” Connie said breathlessly. “Dance with me?”

Steven swept her into his arms, spinning on his heels the way he’d seen Ruby and Sapphire fuse. Before the warm white light overtook him, he felt a softer, more specific warmth against his lips. He only had a moment to savor it before they were Stevonnie.

“Okay,” they said with a deep breath. They hefted the wedge rock in hand, then shoved it against the seal on the door. A bubble on their fists. One slam. Two.

The door cracked open, just a bit, and their hands pushed in. Their muscles strained as they pulled against the hydraulics, gem glowing in their belly, until it was wide enough for a leap to carry them through. The door slammed closed behind them, cutting off the screams of the zoomans, and they were left alone in the odd halls of the zoo.

“Okay,” they whispered. “Time to get some intel.”


End file.
